


my only love sprung from my only hate

by hakyeonni



Series: little incubus [20]
Category: VIXX
Genre: Alternate Universe - Angels & Demons, Alternate Universe - Succubi & Incubi, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Breaking Up & Making Up, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, First Time, Gentle Sex, Hopeful Ending, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Slow Burn, Vampire Bites, Vampires, strap in yall this one is a wild ride
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-24
Updated: 2018-09-24
Packaged: 2019-07-16 13:09:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 62,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16086770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hakyeonni/pseuds/hakyeonni
Summary: it’s the guilt and the sadness and the joy and the desire and the desperation and the way they both run from their past together, and it’s everything and it’s nothing, and it is this:the simple fact of taekwoon sleeping in hongbin’s arms, peaceful and content and very much alive.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> uhhh sooo yeah this happened ha ha

_I fear too early, for my mind misgives;_  
 _Some consequence, yet hanging in the stars,_  
 _Shall bitterly begin_  
—Romeo and Juliet, Act 1, Scene 4

 

The blood drains out of Hakyeon’s face and he turns and walks away without saying a word, but Hongbin doesn’t look at him, doesn’t even glance his way. Jaehwan is his concern—Jaehwan, black eyes, black wings, green colours shifting faster than Hongbin can perceive. He can see the emotions running through him: fear-anger-horror-rage, rage that burns so bright it hurts his eyes, but he doesn’t blink.

“What have you done,” he whispers, and when he looks straight at Hongbin he has to resist the urge to shiver. “What have you _done!”_

“Help me,” Hongbin says again.

He takes a step forward, Taekwoon’s weight shifting in a disturbing way in his arms—he feels dead already, even though Hongbin can hear his heart, just barely—and is stopped by Jaehwan shoving him back a step roughly. The pain in his broken sternum makes him gasp and focus.

“Go,” Jaehwan spits, wings slightly spread and trembling. “Get out of here. I won’t help you.”

It’s here that Hakyeon returns, and he’s carrying his dagger. The sight of it sends a chill down Hongbin’s spine, and he takes another step back out of pure fear, because the expression on Hakyeon’s face is like nothing else Hongbin has seen before. He has transcended fury. He is something else entirely, the pain of betrayal flashing through his colours, and Hongbin is helpless to move as he approaches with the dagger held high. “Move,” he snarls, and he sounds angrier than Hongbin has ever heard him. “Move or I’ll kill you too.”

The sad thing is, Hongbin does not doubt that he will. “No.”

Silence falls across the four of them as they just stare at him, not moving, frozen and incandescent in their ire.

“What did you say?” Hakyeon whispers.

Hongbin’s patience snaps. “For God’s sake, just help me—he’s _dying_ —”

 _“Let him die!”_ Hakyeon shrieks, shifting himself taller, his features turning utterly demonic. He looks like a Lovecraftian horror. “He should have died ten years ago! Let him fucking go to Hell where he belongs—I’ll drag him there myself—”

“He saved my fucking life!” Hongbin roars, crossing the floor to scream into Hakyeon’s face, aware that puts him in dagger range but emboldened by the sound of Taekwoon’s heart fading as they stand there arguing pointlessly. “He sacrificed himself to save _me_ and he did it because he couldn’t live with himself after what you did to him! This is your fucking fault,” here he lifts Taekwoon’s lifeless body towards Hakyeon, shaking him, “and you have the rest of eternity to live with that.” He turns back to Jaehwan, leaving Hakyeon wide-eyed and speechless. “You _will_ help me because it is my life debt that is owed.”

Hakyeon’s hissing from over his shoulder, but he doesn’t turn. Jaehwan doesn’t look angry anymore. He looks utterly heartbroken, and impossibly old, and he starts shaking his head. “There’s nothing I can do.”

Hongbin pulls Taekwoon closer to him and hears his heartbeat falter. Jaehwan hears it, too, because his eyes widen slightly. “Please,” he whispers, aware that this is pointless. “Help him. I know you won’t believe me, but… he’s changed. I felt it for myself. Do what he never could, and have mercy.”

“There’s nothing I can _do,_ ” Jaehwan insists again, “even if I wanted to. He’s dying. He’s nearly dead. It would be kindest to let him go.”

“He can’t die.” Hongbin shakes his head vehemently. “He can’t die. He can’t die for me. Don’t let him die for me. Please don’t let him die for me.”

“Hongbin—”

“You can’t let him die!” howls Hongbin, and cradles Taekwoon close, because, Christ, what he could have been. Hongbin had seen the look on his face the moment the vampires leapt for him. Taekwoon had been atoning for his sins, all at once, giving his life for Hongbin’s in an attempt to make things right, but all that’s happened is—

The end of the world.

“I can’t—”

“Then you are less worthy of life than him,” Hongbin snarls, and he hears Hakyeon sob from behind him but he cannot stop the words from coming. “You would rather let him die than do the right thing and that is what makes him a better man than you. You won’t even try.” Jaehwan takes a step forward, but Hongbin isn’t finished. “He showed me what they did to you and he was sorry. He was wrong. He knew he was wrong and he changed. If you aren’t even capable of that then you are the monster, not him.”

It’s pointless to debate morality when Taekwoon only has minutes left, so he starts backing away, knowing that he at least tried to do the right thing. Maybe that counts for something.

Or maybe it counts for nothing at all.

“Wait…” Jaehwan breathes, and Hongbin freezes. “He showed you what happened? What did he show you?”

“Jaehwan,” Hakyeon murmurs, a warning laced in his tone.

Hongbin wants to tear his fucking hair out, because what does this have to do with Taekwoon dying in his arms? “The day your mother died. The day you became a nephilim.”

But Jaehwan shakes his head. “No. What did you _see?”_

“Your colours changing,” Hongbin says, slowly, not understanding where Jaehwan is going with this. “From human to nephilim. Pink to green. It was like your soul shattered, along, along these fault lines, I think, and they were…”

Red eyes meet black. Neither of them move. Hongbin _can’t._ He is rooted to the spot, Taekwoon’s weight dragging him down, frozen.

“The tattoos,” Jaehwan breathes. “The bind.”

Taekwoon’s heart stops beating at the exact moment that hope blooms in Hongbin’s chest.

//

“We have to move fast,” Jaehwan says, and then turns and with a sweep of his arm, pushes everything that was on their low dining room table onto the floor. Plates crash and break, paper goes scattering, and Hongbin stands in the middle of it, lost in the maelstrom. “He doesn’t have long.”

“Jaehwan,” Hakyeon says, as Hongbin places Taekwoon’s too-listless body onto the table, arranging his limbs properly. “Jaehwan. What—don’t do this. You can’t do this. Don’t help him.”

“Do you trust me?” Jaehwan murmurs, looking up from where he’s bending over Taekwoon’s face, peering at him.

Hakyeon nods, but it’s not without hesitation.

Hongbin watches them without daring to move.

“Then let me do this. Let me… let me show him some mercy.” Jaehwan smiles, but it’s watery; Hongbin can see how much it hurts him. “I can’t be upstaged by him even in this. Give me your dagger.”

Hongbin’s on his feet again the moment the words leave his mouth, bent over Taekwoon’s dead body and hissing ferally, but Jaehwan puts both hands up, placating. “It’s not for him,” he says, and takes Hakyeon’s dagger and slices into his wrist before either of them can say a damn word. “It’s for me.”

He approaches the table, bleeding arm held out in front of him, and Hongbin realises what he’s about to do. He never even thought of this. He never thought Jaehwan would do this, willingly give Taekwoon his life force; this is more than he ever dared hope. He holds Taekwoon’s mouth open and watches as Jaehwan lets some blood drip in, making another cut when the first one closes. A year ago the scent of Jaehwan’s blood might have driven him mad. Now it’s nothing compared to what’s inside him, and he barely even notices it.

Jaehwan crouches, bringing his wrist against Taekwoon’s mouth. “Just enough to…”

They both hear it at the same time. _Thud… thud. Thud… thud. Thud-thud. Thud-thud._ Taekwoon’s heart, faltering at first but sounding steadier by the second. It’s the sweetest sound Hongbin has heard in a long time, and he sags with relief, staring up at Jaehwan in awe. He knows the power of true immortal blood, of course. He just didn’t realise it could bring life itself.

“That’s enough,” Jaehwan murmurs, and pulls his arm away. “We don’t want him conscious. Just… alive.”

“Alive enough for what?” Hakyeon asks, coming up behind him, arms folded over his chest, fingers twitching like he wants to grab the dagger. “What the fuck are you going to _do?_ Your blood can’t help him heal from this.”

Jaehwan turns away from both of them. All Hongbin can see is his wings, which flutter slightly and spread as he hangs his head; they are so alive and he yearns to touch even though he knows they’re not the right colour.

“I am going to bind his powers,” Jaehwan says quietly. “I’m going to give him the tattoos. I’m going to make him mortal.”

The beat of Taekwoon’s heart underscores his words, a promise made and noted, and some part of Hongbin shatters and begins to mourn what could have been.

//

Hongbin does not move.

Part of him is too afraid to; Hakyeon is stalking back and forth, dagger in hand, refusing to meet his eyes. Part of him doesn’t want to leave Taekwoon’s side, so at least he isn’t alone. Part of him _can’t_ move. This last part of him is the part that realises what he’s done and is forcing him to face the consequences, making him doubt, the guilt eating away at his soul.

He’s sure he did the right thing. But is it still the right thing if he has hurt everyone he loves?

Jaehwan flits back and forth, collecting supplies and checking on Taekwoon every so often. He’s muttering things under his breath, but it’s in a language that Hongbin doesn’t know and so he pays no attention to the sound at all. It’s almost peaceful, in a way, especially when Jaehwan burns a stick of sage to cleanse the room and then lights a whole array of candles, bathing them all in a warm flickering glow that’s somehow comforting.

That is until the door slams open, Sanghyuk and Wonshik standing on the threshold, the both of them differing colours of rage.

“I hate you!” Sanghyuk shrieks and launches himself at Hongbin, who’s in the middle of standing up. “I fucking hate you! I hate you!”

He can’t do much damage, but Hongbin does not defend himself. He stands there and lets Sanghyuk hit and shove him, spitting and kicking like a wildcat, taking this punishment in the full knowledge that he deserves every second of it. “Sanghyuk, I’m sorry—”

“Don’t you fucking speak to me.” Sanghyuk pauses, his whole body heaving, and yet another part of Hongbin breaks. “Don’t even look at me. I fucking hate you, Hongbin. You know what he did to me! You fucking—you saw what he did to me. And you still want to save his life.”

“He’s different—”

“Don’t,” Sanghyuk says, his voice glass; one wrong move and it will shatter. “Don’t justify this to me. You can’t justify it. This is—this is unforgivable.”

 _I’m losing him,_ Hongbin realises, and in his panic he defaults and reaches for the comfort of Sanghyuk’s skin. He only gets as far as a hand on Sanghyuk’s cheek before Sanghyuk snaps again, flailing and shifting into a million different forms, his entire body rejecting the touch so violently that Hongbin knows, he knows, it’s over. “I love you,” he sobs, because he does and this truth has carried them this far.

The words make Sanghyuk freeze, his features settling back to normal, and then he slowly takes a step back and then another. “I never want to hear you say that again,” he whispers. “I never want to see you again.”

He turns and steps into the circle of Hakyeon’s arms, seeking comfort that Hongbin can no longer provide, and the last piece of Hongbin breaks and cracks and he feels—nothing. He feels nothing. He feels nothing when Wonshik steps forward with sad eyes, shaking his head, and says, “You’re not the man I thought you were.”

He has nothing to say. He is nothing. They have broken him.

He has broken himself.

“Hongbin,” Jaehwan says, and Hongbin turns only because he has nothing left. “I need you.”

He doesn’t even notice when Hakyeon takes the others and leaves. His world is narrowed down into Taekwoon, the steady _thump-thump_ of his heart and how vulnerable he looks lying on the table. Jaehwan has stripped him of his clothes and now that he is naked it is even more apparent how bad his wounds are, and as Hongbin settles himself on the floor next to him and folds his hands in his lap, his heart sinks. Taekwoon has to live. He has to. Otherwise this will have been for naught and—and Hongbin isn’t sure how he’d be able to live with himself.

“He might not make it,” Jaehwan says. “I don’t even know if this ritual works on angels. It might not do anything and he might die anyway. I need you to be prepared for that.”

“It’s fine,” Hongbin replies, his voice remarkably steady. “What do you need me to do?”

“Chant with me. Just say what I say. Don’t touch him and don’t disturb me. Just chant.”

It’s only now that he sees Jaehwan has what looks to be two rods in his hands. One is bent at a right-angle and comes to a sharp point, and as he dips this end into a pot of ink on the ground near his knee, Hongbin realises that this is the needle. _Where did he get them from?_ he thinks as Jaehwan readies the rods above Taekwoon’s collarbone. _Does it matter?_

“Wait!” he splutters as Jaehwan raises one of the rods. “Wait. Don’t—don’t give him leaves. Not like yours.”

A wry expression crosses Jaehwan’s face, like he didn’t even think of this; maybe he didn’t. “What should I give him?”

“Lavender,” Hongbin whispers, and Jaehwan smiles dryly.

They begin.

Hongbin isn’t sure what he expected, but whatever it was, it’s not this. The candles and their flickering light drive away the rest of the world until it’s just the three of them and the sound of Jaehwan’s voice and the rhythmic _tap-tap_ of the needle. Jaehwan chants in a quiet voice, and after a few moments, Hongbin joins in.

“We bind thee. We bind thee to what thou shalt not be. We bind thee to what thou cannot be. We bind thee to what thou is not.”

The words send shivers down his spine and pull at his chest. It’s horribly uncomfortable, but he doesn’t stop, and neither does Jaehwan. Time loses meaning, if it ever had any in the first place. All there is is this: Taekwoon, Jaehwan, the needle, the words, and the magic swirling in the air around them. They sit there for minutes or decades; Hongbin isn’t sure, and it doesn’t matter anyway.

He chants and sways, mourning what was and what cannot be. He mourns Sanghyuk and Wonshik and Hakyeon, and he mourns Taekwoon, and he mourns for himself. When he opens his eyes again Jaehwan has moved onto Taekwoon’s thighs, and the sight of Taekwoon with delicate sprigs of lavender on his collarbones, ribs, and hands is nearly too much.

“We bind thee. We bind thee to what thou shalt not be. We bind thee to what thou cannot be. We bind thee to what thou is not.”

His voice is going hoarse and he’s exhausted—the sun has risen and is on its way to setting again—but he doesn’t stop. This has to work. It _has_ to. If the universe has any mercy left in it, it will work. If Hongbin gave up everything for this, it will work. He hopes. He prays.

“I’m done,” Jaehwan croaks sometime after sunset, and he closes his eyes and sags. “It’s finished.”

Taekwoon looks just the same as he did when they begun, only now with tattoos littering his body in the same places Jaehwan’s are; the wounds are just as awful and he’s still just as pale, his chest rising and falling in the dim light of the candles, some of which have spluttered out. “Did it work?” Hongbin whispers, raising a hand to touch Taekwoon’s face and then reconsidering. “Is he—”

“Look.”

And so Hongbin does, and he sees—

Not nothingness.

He sees humanity.

//

“What do I do?” he murmurs, hand hovering over Taekwoon’s head.

Jaehwan stands up, needles still in his hands; he looks as tired as Hongbin feels, and with a small shock he realises that this must have drained him, drained the both of them. Did they give Taekwoon his humanity? Is that why it worked?

“Go,” Jaehwan replies. “Take him and go.”

“But—”

Jaehwan cuts him off with a shake of his head. “It’s best for everyone if you go, and if you don’t come back. I did this for you, and for him, but I can’t help you any longer. Take him somewhere safe and give him your blood to heal and help him when he wakes up.”

 _Take him somewhere safe give him your blood help him when he wakes up,_ Hongbin repeats to himself as he wraps Taekwoon in a sheet—Jaehwan doesn’t offer them clothes, and he doesn’t ask—and picks him up, cradling him to his chest. He is too exhausted to even feel jubilant that the ritual worked. He is still empty. _Take him somewhere safe give him your blood help him when he wakes up take him somewhere safe give him your blood help him when he wakes up take him somewhere safe give him your blood help him when he wakes up,_ he thinks, and knows that this, at least, he can do.

“Thank you,” he says to Jaehwan as he leaves, trying to convey just how much it means to him that Jaehwan risked—risked everything, really, to do this.

But Jaehwan just looks sad. “I hope we did the right thing,” he replies, and Hongbin hears the uncertainty in his voice and recognises it as the same uncertainty that’s wreathing him, for he truly doesn’t know. He has given up on deciphering right from wrong.

For the second time in two days, Hongbin gathers a lifeless Taekwoon in his arms and runs though the night, away from the only family he has ever known and forward into the uncertainty of solitude.

//

Sanghyuk is completely hysterical, and Hakyeon does not know how to help him.

Wonshik’s disappeared—back to his own apartment, probably, unable to deal with the emotions that are crashing around them all like waves—so it’s just the two of them standing on the street outside Hakyeon’s apartment. He doesn’t know where to go, what to do; all he can do is hold onto Sanghyuk to try and keep him together.

“Take me home,” he chokes out, shudders running through his body so violently that Hakyeon feels them too. “Please, please take me home.”

“Okay,” Hakyeon says, because what else can he do?

It’s so hard to focus with Sanghyuk’s panic choking him (it’s his own panic too, if he’s honest) but he manages to get them both in Jaehwan’s car. It’s only until he puts his hand on the ignition to start and realises that both sets of keys are upstairs. He’s not setting foot inside again, and there’s only a few minutes before Sanghyuk loses it entirely—Hakyeon feels his chest constrict and tries to breathe through it—so in desperation he rips the panel underneath the steering wheel off and pulls out a handful of wires.

“What are you doing?” Sanghyuk asks, his voice sounding rather measured for how close he is to exploding; Hakyeon can see his knuckles going white from where he’s hanging onto the door handle.

“Hotwiring the car,” Hakyeon replies through gritted teeth. It’s not as easy as it looks, and it’s been decades since he last did it—but he finds the two wires he needs, strips the insulation back, touches them together, and the car’s engine roars into life. “There.”

He pulls out of the garage with the horrible squeal of tyres on concrete echoing around them, and out of the corner of his eye can see Sanghyuk watching him, wide-eyed. “You know how to hotwire a car?” When Hakyeon doesn’t reply, he shakes his head. “Why am I not surprised?”

And then he bursts into tears, because—Hakyeon can see this clearly through the bond—usually when Sanghyuk’s in a car it’s Hongbin at the wheel, reaching across to lace his fingers with Sanghyuk’s and squeeze his hand tight. Hakyeon puts a hand on Sanghyuk’s knee and pats him, but that only makes him sob harder. Swerving through traffic is difficult when Hakyeon’s upset, but when he’s driving with his own anger and sorrow as well as Sanghyuk’s crushing him like a vice, it’s nearly impossible; soon he finds his own eyes blinded with tears as well. “Breathe,” he mutters, patting Sanghyuk’s knee with more enthusiasm. “Just breathe. We’ll be home soon.”

Not a moment too soon, actually. The instant they screech to a halt in the guest parking, Hakyeon’s out of the car like a shot and opening the passenger door. Sanghyuk lets himself be carried up to the apartment, sobbing quietly into Hakyeon’s chest, and the moment he closes the door behind them both he completely loses it. They both fall to the floor, so wrapped up in each other’s emotions it’s hard to tell where Hakyeon ends and Sanghyuk begins, and they sob, utterly and brokenly. Sanghyuk is a horrible whirl of guilt and anger and fear, a desperate, bone-crushing fear at seeing Taekwoon again, even on the very verge of death—but most of all is the pervasive feeling of horror at Hongbin’s betrayal, at consorting with Sanghyuk’s murderer.

“How could he?” Sanghyuk gasps, raking his nails down Hakyeon’s back as he clings closer. “How could he—I can’t—I _hate_ him—”

Hakyeon does, too, because they had had peace. They had been able to live their lives without the shadow of Taekwoon falling over them, and now he’s back, like a nightmare none of them can really be free from. For Hongbin to do this is completely unforgivable. “I know,” he murmurs, and strokes Sanghyuk’s back, trying in vain to soothe him. He hates Hongbin, but he loves him, and the pain of that is tearing them both apart. “I know, Sanghyuk, I know.”

They sit there for hours as Sanghyuk shakes and wails and cries, broken apart once more. Hakyeon does his best to hold him together, to do what a good maker should, but he’s not sure he succeeds. How can he when this betrayal cuts Sanghyuk to the quick, more painful than anything he has ever experienced before? The very stuff of his nightmares is back to haunt him once more, and worst of all, his own boyfriend is the one who invited him in.

Sanghyuk finally falls into a restless sleep, and Hakyeon tucks him into bed and presses a kiss to his forehead before leaving, trying to separate Sanghyuk’s feelings from his own. He’s not sure he’s successful, but it doesn’t really matter. They are both feeling variations of the same thing: pain, sadness, anger, all in intense waves that crash over them both, relentless.

His fingers clench and unclench on the steering wheel as he drives home, and he pictures driving his dagger into Taekwoon’s heart, over and over and over again until he is finally, finally dead.

//

The apartment is just the same as when Hongbin saw it last, with the addition of a chest of drawers shoved in the corner; he doesn’t even bother to wonder where Taekwoon got it from. He just blinks at it tiredly before tipping Taekwoon onto the sofa and sinking down next to him.

“Take him somewhere safe,” he mumbles, and bites into his wrist. “Give him your blood.”

Taekwoon is still out cold, but that doesn’t matter. It’s probably better, actually. The longer he’s out—the more time he has to heal—the better, and so Hongbin just opens his mouth and lets the blood run in. He nearly falls asleep like that, his head nodding onto his chest, and jolts upright when Taekwoon awakens with a gasp and clamps onto Hongbin’s wrist, eyes wide and terrified.

“Drink,” Hongbin says, because it’s easier to command than it is to explain. “Just drink. You’ll feel better.”

It doesn’t matter how much Taekwoon takes. Hongbin clearly has enough to spare. And this is giving back, in a way—the energy that has kept him alive through all they’ve just been through was Taekwoon’s in the first place, so he’s just returning it to its rightful owner. It doesn’t really register that Taekwoon has never drunk his blood before, and it certainly doesn’t register that his pupils are blown wide, much like a human’s would be. He just lets Taekwoon drain him until his wounds are closed, at which point Hongbin pulls his arm away and licks at an errant drop of blood trailing down his arm before closing the wound with a swipe of his tongue. Taekwoon’s eyes follow his mouth, and he gasps and shudders and clenches his hands into fists.

“Sleep.” Hongbin puts a hand on Taekwoon’s forehead, trying to comfort. “Just sleep. You’ll feel better when you wake up.”

Taekwoon’s eyes are closing, as are Hongbin’s, but he has enough strength to rip Hongbin’s hand away. “What have you _done?”_ he chokes out before the tiredness takes him and he goes limp.

“I don’t know,” Hongbin replies, but Taekwoon isn’t listening.

He has just enough strength left in him to get up and dress Taekwoon—he has quite the assortment of clothes in the dresser, which Hongbin would find amusing if he wasn’t so drained and empty—so he at least doesn’t awaken naked, at which point the exhaustion overcomes him and he has to crawl to the tiny bathroom. He stuffs a towel underneath the crack at the bottom of the door, hopes that’s enough to combat the sun, and is asleep before he can wonder if he’ll even burn.

//

The morning is split by a scream, and Hongbin is on his feet and stumbling towards the sofa before his mind can even register that the sun is shining on him and he isn’t burning. His focus is on Taekwoon, on the way he’s thrashing on the sofa so wildly that it looks like his body is rejecting itself once more. But Hongbin can’t see lavender, isn’t scalded by a wave of angelic power; this is human, not magical in the slightest, and his heart hurts.

“What is it, what hurts—” he gasps, catching Taekwoon’s flailing hands. “Taekwoon, talk to me—”

But Taekwoon is beyond hearing or comprehending. He’s utterly hysterical, and Hongbin realises, with a sinking feeling, that he is witnessing a billions-old being come to terms with its own mortality. He’s screaming wordlessly, just a raw, savage sound that makes Hongbin want to crawl away and die rather than hear it any longer. If he was broken—if he thought he was empty—he is nothing compared to this. It sounds like Taekwoon’s brain is trying to destroy itself. Maybe it is. Maybe Hongbin doesn’t blame him.

He doesn’t say anything. What can he say? What words of comfort can he offer that will lessen this burden? He has none, so instead he sits in silence, holding Taekwoon’s hands so he can’t hurt himself. Taekwoon screams until he’s hoarse and when his voice gives way he starts crying, heaving sobs that wrack through his whole body violently. It goes on for hours, but Hongbin doesn’t leave; it’s his fault that they are here in the first place and so it’s as much his burden to bear as well as Taekwoon’s.

Once again, he questions if he really did the right thing at all.

When the sun sets Taekwoon finally goes limp and Hongbin releases his hands. He half-expects Taekwoon to attack him, but instead he just curls into a ball and closes his eyes. He whimpers when Hongbin touches his head. “Leave me alone,” he chokes out, so Hongbin does.

He retreats to the bathroom once more, but this time he does not bother to shut the door. If the sun doesn’t burn him, then he’ll wake bathed in its rays, the only small happiness he has now. If he burns, then he burns. He deserves it anyway.

//

Hakyeon returns home shortly after dawn.

Jaehwan has been sitting up waiting for him. There’s no point sleeping; he’s exhausted after the ritual, but he has to clean up and put everything away, and keeping his hands busy is a way to keep him from thinking too hard about what he’s just done. When the room is clean, everything back in its place, Jaehwan settles onto the floor and closes his eyes and waits.

The door opens with a slam, and Jaehwan is slightly relieved to see that Hakyeon is alone; he’s not sure he could deal with the combined hysteria of Sanghyuk and Wonshik as well. His relief is short-lived, however. Hakyeon is vibrating with anger still. “If you didn’t kill him during that fucking ritual,” he spits, marching right over to Jaehwan and jabbing a finger in his face, “I’m never going to speak to you again.”

It’s an empty threat—many of Hakyeon’s are—and so he doesn’t rise to the bait. “I didn’t kill him.”

Hakyeon explodes. He’s a shrieking, howling mess, shifting so fast Jaehwan can’t even get a hold of him. “You know what he did to me you know what he did to Wonshik he killed Sanghyuk! He killed your _mother_ he’s been chasing you for thousands of years how could you fucking do this how could you let him live when you could have finally put this to an end—”

The worst part is Jaehwan knows that this outburst is rooted in fear, a deep dark pocket of it that Hakyeon carries close to his heart. It’s fear for himself and fear for Jaehwan and fear for the others, and he thought they’d moved past this PTSD on his trip, but clearly not. “Listen—”

“No, _you_ listen,” Hakyeon roars, and then he’s ten feet tall and looming over Jaehwan, hands curled into claws. “He’s going to kill me he’s going to kill us all—”

Jaehwan finally manages to catch a hold of Hakyeon’s flailing wrist and forces him to shift back to himself. He knows Hakyeon hates when he does that, but he’s at a loss for what to do; Hakyeon’s so beyond hysterical he doesn’t know how to get through to him. “Incubus,” he croons, and Hakyeon collapses into broken sobs. “He won’t kill us. He can’t lay a hand on you. He’s human.”

Hakyeon doesn’t respond for a few moments, just clings onto Jaehwan like he’s an anchor; he’s lost at sea, and it hurts Jaehwan’s heart to see. “He’s h-human?”

“Completely and utterly human,” Jaehwan confirms, and pulls Hakyeon into his lap. “He can’t kill you. He certainly can’t kill me.”

He doesn’t share the rest of what he’s thinking—that he believes Hongbin when he says that Taekwoon’s changed, although he’s not sure why. The vehemence with which Hongbin had begged to save his life had spoken volumes; Hongbin is rational and level-headed, just like his maker, and a very good judge of character. Jaehwan doesn’t know what occurred between them for Taekwoon to show Hongbin the memory he’d spoken of, but it must have been something monumental, enough for Taekwoon to give his life to save Hongbin’s.

And, after all, Jaehwan is getting old. He’s tired. Maybe it’s time for mercy.

“But he’s _back,”_ Hakyeon moans, and clings tighter.

“I know. But he can’t hurt you, and he won’t bother us. I told Hongbin to keep him away from us.” At the mention of Hongbin’s name, a shudder goes through Hakyeon. “After a good eighty years or so he’ll die a normal human death. We can go to his funeral. You can watch as he’s buried.”

It’s horribly macabre, but it soothes Hakyeon somewhat, and he loosens his chokehold from around Jaehwan’s neck. “I can’t believe Hongbin would do something like that,” he slurs. “To Sanghyuk… To Wonshik. To me.”

“Don’t you think he must have had good reason to?”

“Reason doesn’t come into it.” Hakyeon pulls back, his eyelashes clumped together with sparkling tears, still more beautiful than Jaehwan can even articulate. “It’s black and white. Taekwoon is evil. He deserved to die. He didn’t deserve mercy.”

Maybe so. Maybe not. Jaehwan doesn’t know, and being judge, jury and executioner is what caused this mess in the first place—the angels and God thinking they knew what was best for everyone—so he’s loath to say so, especially when for the past ten years they have had peace. It was rocky peace, but it was peace all the same.

“Things would have been easier if I had killed him on the rooftop,” he murmurs to himself, but Hakyeon catches it and snorts. “But I thought that was too merciful, and look where we ended up.”

“Things would have been easier if angels weren’t such know-it-all assholes,” Hakyeon counters, and manages a weak smile.

“How’s Sanghyuk?”

Hakyeon winces at the mention of his name, which says volumes more than his words ever could. “Not… good. But he doesn’t hold grudges like I do… so we’ll see.”

“I never thought an incubus would be the most bloodthirsty out of our little group,” Jaehwan muses, standing up and wrapping his wings around the both of them as he carries Hakyeon to the bedroom. “I bet you would have been a good vampire.”

“Or a good angel,” Hakyeon mumbles.

“Absolutely not. Angels don’t have sex drives,” Jaehwan counters, and then adds, “for the most part,” thinking of his father, whoever he is.

“Good demon, then.”

“Yes, I think you’d be a good demon.” Jaehwan crawls into bed and pulls the blankets over them both, tucking it around Hakyeon and pulling him gently close. “Although for my sake I’m rather glad you’re a false immortal. If you had demon powers you would probably fuck me up very easily.”

Jaehwan can sense that all is still not right with Hakyeon—he’s still angry, and very upset, almost certainly with Hongbin—but this time when he smiles it’s with a bit more substance and Jaehwan breathes a sigh of relief. This is a step back, but it hasn’t undone everything. Hakyeon is still sane, and that’s enough. “If I had demon powers? Please. I could fuck you up right now,” Hakyeon says, but it’s a bluff and they both know it.

“You could _fuck_ me right now, but I don’t know about fucking me up—”

“I can’t believe you’re trying to flirt with me when I’ve just screamed at you—”

“Hate sex is a thing!” Jaehwan punctuates his sentence with a kiss.

“Yeah, but I’d have to hate you first, and I don’t.” Hakyeon grins, and wiggles his eyebrows. “At least not _yet_. You’re on thin ice, nephilim.”

“I’ll be careful,” Jaehwan replies, but he’s already pressing kisses to Hakyeon’s neck, the sensitive spot he likes. “You’re scary when you’re angry.”

Hakyeon giggles, his hands winding in Jaehwan’s hair, and Jaehwan knows that, given time and space—a lot of it, knowing Hakyeon—he’ll be okay.

They’ll all be okay.

//

The moment Hongbin’s eyes snap open he realises that he’s fully healed, and he also realises that a few days have passed, at least; the air in the apartment is stale and stuffy, and the dried blood all over him is flaking off whenever he moves. He checks on Taekwoon, but he’s still sleeping, a hand flung over his face, so he closes the bathroom and showers for the first time in what feels like months.

He tries not to think of Sanghyuk.

He fails miserably, of course.

When he gets out of the shower he wraps a towel around his waist and creeps past a still-sleeping Taekwoon to help himself to some of the clothes in the dresser. They’re not his style but beggars can’t be choosers and he doesn’t have room to complain, so he pulls on a pair of jeans and turns with a shirt in his hands and nearly jumps a foot in the air when he realises Taekwoon is awake and watching him.

“Hello,” he says, idiotically, and then realises he’s still shirtless and hurriedly pulls the tshirt on.

“Hello,” Taekwoon says, or attempts to say—it comes out croaky and he grimaces. “How long was I… asleep?”

“A few days, I think. I was asleep as well.”

Taekwoon smiles and points at the shirt, but Hongbin sees the moment he catches sight of the lavender tattoo on the back of his hand; he goes pale, eyes wide, and his hand freezes in mid-air. “Ah,” he whispers, so quiet Hongbin nearly has to strain to hear. “I had… forgotten.” His eyes flick to Hongbin’s and narrow. “What… have you done?”

“You were dying,” Hongbin murmurs. “I couldn’t just… let you die. Not after what you did for me. Not after how you’d changed.”

“That was not your choice to make.” Taekwoon swings his legs off the sofa and stands, but he’s swaying and wobbly. More alarming than that, though, is how Hongbin can’t see his anger, even though he feels like he should. He can’t read mortal emotions like he can immortal ones. “I decide when I live or die. You wouldn’t let me die so I—I took matters into my own hands. What did you _do?”_

“I took you to Jaehwan. He… did the ritual. We didn’t know if it would work…” Hongbin lets his words trail off when he sees Taekwoon go pale, paler than he already is, and take another wobbly step forward.

“You did _what?”_

“I took you to Jaehwan—”

But he can’t elaborate because with no warning Taekwoon’s legs give way underneath him and he folds to the floor. Hongbin catches him just in time and pulls him into his lap, hands fluttering awkwardly, unsure of what’s wrong. Taekwoon isn’t dead, he’s still breathing, but his eyelids are flickering and when Hongbin shakes him a little he’s horribly limp. Is the ritual failing? Is he just… dying? “What’s wrong? Taekwoon—Taekwoon talk to me—”

“Thirsty,” Taekwoon slurs, and paws at his throat.

Hongbin gasps and drops Taekwoon, wincing when his head thumps on the carpet but unable to summon any worry in his rush to get out the door. Of _course_. Taekwoon is human now. Humans need to eat and drink, and if they’ve both been asleep for days, he has done neither of those. It’s been so long since he was mortal that he has completely forgotten any other need beyond his need for blood. His brain still can’t quite compute the fact that Taekwoon is human, he’s mortal, and he hurries even faster to the nearest convenience store.

He steals water and some chips when the shopkeeper’s back is turned, and by the time he gets back to the little apartment Taekwoon has propped himself up against the sofa, but he still looks deathly pale. “Here,” Hongbin says a little breathlessly, and shoves a bottle of water into his hands. “Drink this. And eat these.”

They sit in silence while Taekwoon does as he’s told. He wrinkles his nose at the chips at first, but the hunger overtakes him and he finishes the bag faster than Hongbin has ever seen anyone eat before. By the time he’s finished some colour has returned to his face and, while he still looks not-quite-right, he seems better.

“You took me to Jaehwan,” Taekwoon states, some time later.

“Yes.”

“The others found out?”

“Yes.”

Here he turns his face towards Hongbin, and he looks so puzzled and sad that Hongbin struggles to breathe, suddenly. “You risked everything for me…” he murmurs. “Why?”

Taekwoon’s habit of asking unanswerable questions has not waned, it seems, and Hongbin looks away. How can he even begin deciphering the heavy mass of whirling feelings in his chest? How can he articulate that he thought he was doing the right thing, that he doesn’t think Taekwoon deserves to die, that he deserves a chance at a normal life—but that now he’s not so sure? Entertaining the possibility of losing everything was easy when it was just that, a possibility. Now that it has become reality, he feels the loss of the others so sharply as a wound inside of him, one he doesn’t know he can heal from.

“I don’t know,” he says eventually. “I… didn’t want you to die for me. I thought you… I didn’t want you to throw your life away for me.”

“You threw your life away for mine,” Taekwoon points out.

“I thought I was doing the right thing.”

Taekwoon shakes his head sadly. “You should have let me die.”

“No—”

“You should have let me _die,”_ he repeats, leaning over to emphasise his point. “I had nothing to live for. You had everything. I didn’t want to ruin it for you. I wanted to fade away and be forgotten like I—like I deserve. And now I have hurt everyone you love yet again.” He turns away, but it’s too late; Hongbin can see his tears. “I am sorry.”

Hongbin doesn’t have to touch him to know that this remorse is genuine; it is patently obvious, and while he’d thought he was numb to more pain another tendril of it curls around his heart almost lovingly. What a mess they are.

“I made my choice,” he says, and takes Taekwoon’s hand, giving it a squeeze to try and reassure him. “I made my _choice_ ,” he repeats. “I made my choice, Taekwoon, and I chose to do what I thought was the right thing. I’m tired of everyone dying. And I’m glad you’re not dead.”

“At least that makes one of us,” Taekwoon breathes, and pulls his hand free.

Hongbin lets him go. He does not follow. He retreats to the safety of the bathroom and shuts the door, lying down on the wet tiles and staring at nothing.

He made his choice, yes. He is glad Taekwoon isn’t dead, yes. But—Sanghyuk’s vicious hatred—Wonshik’s quiet fury—Hakyeon’s seething rage—it is a very high price to pay.

He does not know if it was worth it.

//

He sleeps fitfully, mainly because it’s dark and his body seems to know that he should be awake now, and when he wakes after a few hours he realises Taekwoon is sitting in the darkness with him.

“You were crying,” Taekwoon offers, and hugs his knees tighter. “I was worried.”

“I was… crying?” Hongbin wipes his eyes and curls his lip when his fingers come back bloody. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to worry you.”

He had been dreaming of Wonshik, of all things, and without even thinking he closes his eyes and sinks into himself, finding the quiet place inside his mind where his bond with Wonshik lies—after so long, their bond is not so potent or easily-sensed as it once was, but is still strong and steady in the background—and diving into it. He forgets, for a few moments. But when Wonshik’s sadness hits him so hard he gasps, eyes filling with tears all over again, he remembers, and scrambles to close shut a door between them. It’s too late.

Wonshik is grieving.

“Hongbin?” Taekwoon puts a hand on his shoulder, shaking gently. “What—are you alright? What is it?”

“Please leave me alone,” Hongbin chokes out, because he doesn’t know if he can stand hearing Taekwoon’s voice right now.

Taekwoon, thankfully, doesn’t argue. He just gives Hongbin’s shoulder one last pat before standing up and making his way out of the bathroom, closing the door gently behind him and leaving Hongbin to curl into a ball and sob.

//

Wonshik is reminded of Hongbin everywhere he goes.

It’s his fault, really, for not getting rid of the majority of Hongbin’s stuff when he moved out; whatever he didn’t take with him has languished exactly where it was left, which was fine for the years that have passed since then but now, in the wake of Hongbin’s sins, is not fine. It’s not fine at _all_ , and Wonshik has to rip the doorknob off Hongbin’s old bedroom door because he finds himself walking into it over and over again for reasons he can’t fathom.

It’s not like Hongbin is dead, although that would almost be easier. But he’s alive, somewhere; Wonshik feels his sadness through the bond, which only makes it worse. Hongbin is more upset than Wonshik has ever felt him. He wakes in the middle of the day to pain that’s not his knifing through him, and closes his eyes to sleep at night with the sound of Hongbin’s sobs echoing in his ears. It’s worse than how it was when Hongbin was first turned and they were both getting used to the bond, but the years have dulled its intensity, and it should not be as painful as it is.

(Wonshik doesn’t want to admit that a great part of that pain is his own. He just doesn’t.)

It comes to a head when he manages to drag himself out of bed one evening, only to find the sink is piled up with dirty glasses, a mountain of them. The last time he’d done the dishes was with Hongbin sitting on the counter next to him, asking questions that Wonshik should have known were suspicious—if he’d just _known_ he could have stopped this—and flashing his dimples when he smiled. Faced with the task of the dishes without Hongbin by his side—without Hongbin at all—he folds to the floor and finds that his face is wet. It’s been years since he cried, and even longer still since he cried for Hongbin, but he finds he can’t stop.

Wonshik has never had to contemplate life without his child before, and now that he’s faced with it, he finds he feels as if he has lost a part of himself.

//

When Hongbin next emerges from the bathroom, a full day has passed and it is night again, which is a small comfort. Just because he can walk in the sun now—and he isn’t even sure how long that will last—doesn’t mean he can turn his back on night; it’s been his domain for as long as he can remember. Taekwoon is lying on the sofa, but he’s not asleep, and when he turns his head Hongbin can see the glistening trails of tears down his cheeks.

“Hey, you ordered pizza,” he says, pointing at the box on the floor, trying for levity. “Wish I could have some.”

But Taekwoon shudders. “Hongbin,” he whispers, and Hongbin shivers at the sound of his name said with such sadness. “I—I can’t—”

“What’s wrong?”

“Everything!” Taekwoon wails, sitting up with such ferocity that Hongbin takes a step back on instinct. “I cannot—I cannot taste anything. I cannot _hear_ anything. I feel like a child, stumbling around. My mind is so small. I’m… I’m useless.”

“You’re not useless,” Hongbin says, hovering, unsure how to comfort. “You’re just not used to it—”

Hope blooms on Taekwoon’s face as he reaches an outstretched hand to Hongbin, and moving automatically, Hongbin takes it. He expects Taekwoon inside his mind, as does Taekwoon, but of course there’s nothing. There’s _nothing_. They both realise it at the same time, and Hongbin sees Taekwoon break. He actually sees the moment he crumbles. “I can’t see!” he sobs, and covers his eyes with his hands. “How am I meant to—to communicate? I can’t see, I’m blind!”

Hongbin sits on the sofa and pulls Taekwoon close. It’s all he can do. He can’t imagine what it would be like to be deprived of his strange sixth sense—although in a way, with Taekwoon, he is—and if this is all Taekwoon has known for the past however many billions of years, it must be an incomprehensible change. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs into Taekwoon’s hair as Taekwoon practically crawls into his lap, seeking comfort through touch that he can no longer find. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”

Part of him wonders if this is what his next however many years will be like, until Taekwoon passes away naturally. The thought of that sends a pang of pain through his heart for a million different reasons, and instead of examining them he just shoves them away, compartmentalises, because if he doesn’t he will go crazy.

“I am sorry too,” Taekwoon says through hiccups, fingers clenching in the fabric of Hongbin’s shirt as he clings on, like Hongbin is his anchor. “We are the two sorriest beings in the universe.”

It’s his attempt at a joke, but it doesn’t make Hongbin laugh. “And the loneliest,” he adds.

“At least we have each other.”

A beat of silence. If Hongbin ever thought that his life could go so wrong that his only comfort would come from an ex-angel who murdered his ex-boyfriend—and he never, ever thought he’d have cause to call Sanghyuk that—then maybe he wouldn’t have done what he did. But he did, and they are here, and Taekwoon’s right. All they have is each other.

“A vampire and an oversized ex-angel,” he murmurs. “Fantastic.”

Taekwoon laughs, and it’s not particularly exuberant but it’s a nice sound to hear anyway. Hongbin will take what he can get, now. That’s all he can do.


	2. Chapter 2

The days flow like water. Hongbin is only barely aware of time slipping away, because he doesn’t do much with it; he spends most of his time in the bathroom, curled into a ball on the tiles, somewhere very far away in his mind. Mostly he’s replaying the good times with Sanghyuk, but Hakyeon and Wonshik and even Jaehwan feature, to an extent, in his daydreams. Sometimes he walks in the sun to make sure he still can, but now that he doesn’t have a reliable source of angel blood he’s wary of pushing his luck and doesn’t stay out for long. It doesn’t bring him the joy it first did, either. All he can think of is how much he wishes Sanghyuk could see him in the sun.

He avoids Taekwoon, and Taekwoon avoids him, and perhaps that’s for the best. They’re both mourning two completely different things; Hongbin is mourning the loss of his friends and family, and Taekwoon is coming to terms with his mortality, his humanity, his new body and its capabilities. He can’t say who has it worse, but—well, Hongbin’s glad he’s not in Taekwoon’s shoes.

One night when he lets himself out of the bathroom Taekwoon is sitting on the lounge, arms wrapped around his legs, sobbing quietly. It breaks Hongbin’s heart to see, because it’s the kind of sobs that he’s trying to keep in but can’t, like he doesn’t want anyone to hear him. He doesn’t even hesitate, just sits on the lounge next to him and reaches for Taekwoon’s hand, almost wishing that Taekwoon could read his mind. At least that would provide him some comfort—from the ability itself, he’s sure, if not exactly the contents of Hongbin’s mind—but all he can do is hold him here, keeping him grounded. “What is it?”

“I need your help,” Taekwoon sniffs, and then wipes at his tears somewhat unsuccessfully. “I need you—I need you to get rid of my fangs.”

Hongbin’s eyes widen as he stares at Taekwoon, going very still. “What?”

“Mortals don’t have fangs, do they?” Taekwoon asks, and Hongbin shakes his head. “Then I—I need to make them go away, and I cannot—I cannot shift them away and I do not know what to do—I don’t _want_ them to go but I… I need…”

He’s falling apart in Hongbin’s arms yet again, so Hongbin, without thinking, pats the back of the hand he’s holding. Taekwoon hisses and arches away from him, and Hongbin yanks his hand back, eyes wide. He’d forgotten—the tattoos. _Do they hurt? What does it feel like?_ he thinks, but doesn’t touch again. Just that one brush of skin has left Taekwoon shaking like a leaf. “Sorry. Okay. Okay, we’ll… I’ll help you.”

A file is not something he owns, not in this apartment or back home—maybe Sanghyuk does, but he shakes the thought away, ignoring the pain that spears through him. Instead he wraps a blanket around Taekwoon, leaving him shuddering and crying on the sofa, and runs a convenience store, a different one to the one he’d robbed a few days ago. He finds a metal nail file in the bathroom aisle, and then hovers in front of the instant ramyun for an age, nose wrinkling. When he was a human these didn’t exist, and he’s seen Sanghyuk eating tons of them over the years, but that doesn’t mean he knows what tastes good or what Taekwoon likes. In the end he selects a few varieties, both mild and spicy, and a few triangle kimbaps before taking it all over to the counter. He pays with all the cash he has left in his wallet and then speeds back to the shitty apartment, eyeing the way the sky is lightening in the east.

“I brought comfort food,” he announces as he walks in, kicking the door shut behind him. “Well, what Sanghyuk calls comfort food, anyway. I wouldn’t know. Hey, I don’t suppose your blood gives me the ability to eat, too?” Taekwoon shakes his head, a ghost of a smile on his face even though he has tear-tracks and snot all over his face, and Hongbin shrugs. “Damn. That would have been great.”

He approaches the sofa warily, holding the nail file out in front of him so Taekwoon can inspect it. “Will it hurt?” he whispers, picking it off Hongbin’s palm and running his finger over the coarse side.

“No. I’ll be gentle.”

Hongbin takes the file back and dithers awkwardly, not sure how to do this logistically. But then Taekwoon stretches his legs out in front of him, the implication obvious, and Hongbin shrugs and slides into his lap. He’s closer to Taekwoon than he’s ever been, now, and up close he can see just how human he looks. His skin has lost some of its lustre, and before where he was just pale now he looks… pallid. He even has a pimple on his forehead, which Hongbin shouldn’t find cute but does. And then there’s his eyes… They’re a million times more expressive than they were when they were black, and right now they’re telegraphing such strong pain that Hongbin wants to turn and run away. He hates to be the one to take this away from Taekwoon, the one thing he has left of his angelic power but, well—Taekwoon’s right. Mortals don’t have fangs, and he can’t retract his, so they have to go.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, and cups Taekwoon’s cheeks for just a moment. “I know how much this is killing you to ask of me.”

Taekwoon just closes his eyes and opens his mouth, and Hongbin blinks at his fangs for a moment. He has the strangest rosebud lips, Hongbin realises faintly; they’re pretty, but when his fangs are right there, they’re also very intimidating. Taekwoon’s fangs are longer than his own, deadly-looking even with one missing the tip, and the vampire in him howls at filing away such a good weapon. But it must be done. There’s no point putting it off, so he tugs at Taekwoon’s chin to open his mouth further and then begins.

It’s fucking hard work, he realises after only a minute. He has vampiric strength but doesn’t want to use too much pressure lest he breaks the fang off, and the repetitive motion, even with him filing as fast as possible, soon starts to hurt his arm. If this is hard on him, though, it’s harder on Taekwoon; his face is screwed up and he has tears leaking out of his eyes slowly. Hongbin hates himself for doing this. He hates himself more for saving Taekwoon in the first place.

When he’s done one he lets out the breath he was holding and lets his arm flop, massaging his bicep. “There,” he murmurs. “One down.”

Taekwoon unscrews his face and sticks out his tongue, licking the back of his hand not unlike a cat in an effort to get all the tooth shavings off. Hongbin has to look away so he doesn’t laugh, and when he looks back, Taekwoon is poking at the newly-shaped tooth with a finger, looking desperately pathetic. “It’s gone,” he whispers, and looks up at Hongbin, fresh tears forming in his eyes. “It is really… gone.”

Perhaps it _is_ pathetic that he is crying over a tooth. But that fang wasn’t just a tooth, clearly. It was just a physical representation of everything he’s lost—his wings, his eyes, his ability to read minds, and now his fangs. One by one they’re all going, leaving him… leaving him trembling underneath Hongbin, closing his eyes once more so Hongbin can do the other tooth.

“It will get better,” Hongbin says, but it sounds trite even to his ears and so he just leans in and starts on the other fang, the one that’s already broken.

He doesn’t have the right words to make Taekwoon feel better, and how could he? This is an entirely unique situation. Instead he stays silent as he works, and doesn’t say anything when Taekwoon’s hands settle on his waist, he suspects out of a desire to stay grounded rather than anything remotely affectionate. By the time he’s done his back is cramping and the sun has well and truly risen.

“Done,” he sighs, and flops bonelessly onto the sofa next to Taekwoon. “Have a look.”

Obligingly, Taekwoon unfolds off the sofa and traipses into the bathroom. There’s a rustling, and then silence, and then more frantic rustling that goes beyond whatever it is that Taekwoon should be doing, which is just looking at his teeth. When Hongbin gets up and creeps over to the bathroom, he’s alarmed to see Taekwoon’s stripped off to just his underwear and is trying to peer at his back in the tiny mirror, twisting frantically, teeth gritted and eyes wide.

He’s seen Taekwoon’s tattoos before, of course. He saw them when Jaehwan was finished and he’s been seeing the ones on Taekwoon’s hands for the past however-many-days they’ve been in exile. But seeing all of them at once, when Taekwoon is moving, his skin rippling—it’s overwhelming. They’re _beautiful_. He didn’t realise what a good job Jaehwan did; the ones on his ribs, spanning from underneath his nipples along his side to his back, are beautifully rendered, the stems intertwined. He takes a dreamy step forward, some long-forgotten instinct yearning to touch, and is interrupted by Taekwoon letting out a garbled sob and driving his fist into the mirror so it shatters.

“Oh, Jesus,” Hongbin gasps, and reaches for Taekwoon’s hand, nostrils flaring as he smells the blood. He half expects it to smell different, but it doesn’t. It’s just ordinary human blood. “What did you do that for? Taekwoon, what’s wrong?”

“My back,” Taekwoon chokes out, and when he meets Hongbin’s eyes he looks so rabid that Hongbin freezes. “My—my wings, my—Hongbin, what does my back look like?”

Hongbin grasps the bleeding hand he’s holding a little tighter and pulls Taekwoon into the apartment proper so he can see in the sunlight, and for a moment his chest constricts at the sight of Taekwoon’s tattoos in the sun. Perhaps this should be bizarre, he thinks as he gently spins Taekwoon around to look at his back, considering Taekwoon is nearly naked. But it’s not.

Where the wounds once were has scarred over. Taekwoon has two long crescent-moons of angry red scar tissue from shoulderblade to the top of his waist, and Hongbin winces at the sight of them. “They’re just scars, Taekwoon. They’ll fade.”

“Are they ugly?”

He never took Taekwoon to be particularly vain—angels, from what he understands, don’t give a shit about their appearance beyond their standard modus operandi of looking terrifying. But his voice is so faint, his tone so scared, that Hongbin doesn’t question why he’s asking such an absurd question and instead puts a hand on a scar, the left one, the one he lost first. Taekwoon flinches at the touch. “No,” he murmurs. “They’re beautiful.”

They are, in a way. They’re certainly unique, and they fit the shape of his back like they were made to be there. When Taekwoon turns, tongue running over his newly-shaped teeth, Hongbin has to look away from the intensity of his gaze. “I am nothing,” he says simply.

“You’re—”

“I am _nothing,”_ he insists, voice devoid of emotion, and before Hongbin can argue he walks back to the bathroom and gathers up his clothes mechanically. “Angels are never nothing, but I am.”

Hongbin turns away, his heart heavy, and when he turns back around Taekwoon is gone.

//

He could retreat to the bathroom, but this is the first time, that he knows of, that Taekwoon has actually run off. And while it’s clear that he can fend for himself somewhat (Hongbin doesn’t know whether he bought or stole the TV and all the clothes he owns), Hongbin is still worried. Taekwoon hadn’t seemed upset. He had seemed empty, and somehow that’s more frightening.

He finally returns at sunset, and to his credit seems surprised that Hongbin’s still up waiting for him—albeit lolling on the sofa, dozing. “Hongbin,” he says, and flushes a pretty shade of pink that Hongbin realises is a proper blush. “I… did not realise you would still be awake.”

“I was worried.” Hongbin sits up and pats the sofa next to him. “And I wasn’t finished with you.”

At this Taekwoon swallows, and his heart starts racing—Hongbin can hear it, its pattern familiar but altered somehow—but makes his way over to the sofa obediently. “What do you want?” he asks, not unkindly.

“Just… you ran off before I could talk to you. We’ve barely talked.”

“I wanted to… give you space.” Taekwoon steeples his hands in his lap and refuses to meet Hongbin’s eyes. “I know it must be difficult, seeing me. When I am the one that ruined everything. So I have been trying to… let you avoid me.”

Taekwoon’s not the one who ruined everything, Hongbin is, but he refuses to rise to the bait of that argument and instead sighs. They’re at an impasse again. They should be on the same page after all they’ve gone through together. But there’s a strange distance between them that he can’t breach, and stupidly he finds himself wishing for Hakyeon’s presence. Wonshik used to say that Hakyeon could sell a glass of water to a drowning man, and he’s probably right.

But he isn’t here. None of them are. It’s just Hongbin and Taekwoon, now, and Hongbin has to bite the inside of his cheek for a moment to focus through the pain that clouds his mind. His chest is so _heavy_. How can sadness hurt this much? Is Wonshik feeling this too? Is Sanghyuk?

“Your fangs,” he asks, mainly to distract himself but also partly because he’s been wanting to know for what seems like an age. “Why do you have them?”

Taekwoon blinks, startled. “What do you mean, why?”

“Angels.” He wonders if he’s maybe dragging Taekwoon into a conversation he wants no part of, but blunders forward anyway. “I mean… Vampires have fangs because it would be annoying to drink blood without them. But angels don’t need to drink blood. So why the fangs?”

For a long time Taekwoon doesn’t answer. He’s looking over Hongbin’s shoulder out the window, his mind clearly somewhere very far away. “Not all angels have them,” he says eventually, sounding dreamy. “Only certain… sects. Castes, I suppose is the word.”

Now this is new, and Hongbin blinks, startled. “Angels have morphological differences? I never knew…”

“Most of us stay in Heaven.” Taekwoon’s eyes snap onto Hongbin’s, and his gaze is so intense that Hongbin shivers. “There’s only one caste of angels permitted to descend to Earth, for various purposes. Some hunt nephilim. Some hunt demons. Some just exist to keep an eye on the local false immortal populations. Others still have missions I was never privy to. That caste of angels all look the same.”

Hongbin tries to ignore the way Taekwoon is using the present tense, and instead nods, trying to look as if he’s not blown away by this information. All this time and they’d thought there was just one type of angel… Why haven’t demons made this knowledge public? “Which caste were you?” he says softly, making sure to emphasise the _were_.

Taekwoon doesn’t miss it, and his eyes narrow. “I am—was—I was a seraph.”

“Why do seraphs have fangs?”

At this, Taekwoon grins, and even though he doesn’t have his fangs or his black eyes, he looks so much like his old self that it sends cold fingers down Hongbin’s spine. “Seraphim have fangs as weapons, of course,” he replies, his tone so matter-of-fact it’s like he’s expecting Hongbin to smack his head and say _oh, yeah! Weapons! Duh!_ “We are also permitted to wield swords. All the better to accomplish our missions with.”

“Right. So you were like… Heaven’s bodyguards? Or something?”

Taekwoon stills. “We called ourselves soldiers,” he whispers. “The vengeance and wrath of God.”

Hongbin can see, instantly, he’s gone too far. Taekwoon’s staring at his hands, which are shaking so terribly the lavender tattoos are just a blur. “Taekwoon… I’m sorry,” he whispers, and then for lack of anything else to do, grabs Taekwoon’s hands, being careful not to touch his tattoos. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I wanted to… I don’t know.”

“It’s fine,” Taekwoon replies, but it’s clearly not, and Hongbin doesn’t know how to help. “I just… it does not feel real. I still think I am immortal... and then I am reminded that I am not.”

“Taekwoon—”

“Please leave me.” Taekwoon pulls his hands free of Hongbin’s and clasps them together, almost like he’s praying, and Hongbin doesn’t understand and can’t try to so he does as he’s asked and backs away instead.

He retreats to the safety of the bathroom and yelps when he forgets about the mirror and steps on it, slicing his foot open. Cleaning that up takes all his remaining energy, and by the time he’s done he curls up on the floor and closes his eyes and tries to sleep.

Why he ends up crying instead, he’s not sure.

//

He dreams of Sanghyuk, and when he wakes his dreams slip through his fingers like sand. The only solution to fix it is to go back to sleep, so he does.

He sleeps.

He’s not sure how it can hurt this much. It’s fine when he’s around Taekwoon—he at least serves as a distraction, something to funnel his worries into. But alone he’s utterly broken, torn in two by the strength of the pain and loss coursing through him. He thinks sometimes some of it is Wonshik’s, leaking through the bond as much as he tries to dam it up, but most of the time it originates from deep inside himself, a dark place that he wants to pretend doesn’t exist.

The door opens, startling him out of the hellscape of his nightmares, but it’s just Taekwoon. “You are crying again,” he says softly, and Hongbin realises he’s right; he can feel a sticky pool of cold blood on the tiles underneath his face.

“Sorry,” Hongbin sniffles.

“It’s fine.” Taekwoon unfurls the blanket he has in his arms and drapes it over Hongbin carefully, tucking it under him and resting a hand on his head for the briefest of moments. Hongbin almost wishes he could feel Taekwoon inside his mind; somehow it would mean that everything was fixed. But, of course, Taekwoon cannot read his mind anymore. He is alone.

“Sleep,” Taekwoon whispers. “It helps.”

Hongbin does, pulling the blanket over his head to muffle his sobs.

It would be fine, maybe, if none of the others were hurting. But he’s never seen Hakyeon that angry before—not even when he realised Jaehwan knew that Taekwoon was the one who killed Sanghyuk—and he has never, _ever_ seen pain the likes of which he saw in Sanghyuk’s eyes before. It is one thing to have ruined his own life… but to have ruined the lives of the others? He has the rest of eternity to live with himself. How will he be able to do it?

He does not want to think of it. Instead, he lets go, letting sleep claim him and erase the transgressions of his past.

//

He’s not sure what drags him from the bathroom after an indeterminate period has passed. Perhaps it’s the desire to see the sun again while he still can; it’s certainly not the urge to feed, which is unnerving. He knew he’d ingested a lot of Taekwoon’s blood. He just didn’t realise how much. He hasn’t fed on a human for months, and when he thinks of it, his fangs don’t even descend.

But deep down he knows what it is. It’s been two weeks, perhaps more. He’s cried so much that he gave up washing the blood off the tiles. He’s mourned and grieved and lamented all he can, given that he has to take care of Taekwoon. If he was alone—well, he’s not sure he’d have the motivation to move off that bathroom floor at all. But Taekwoon needs him, and after all Hongbin has done he wants Taekwoon to be able to have the second chance he’s been given; he may or may not deserve it, depending on who you ask, but he has it regardless and Hongbin wants to help him make the most of it. Just because Hongbin’s life is completely and utterly fucked does not mean Taekwoon’s has to be.

Then, and only then, he can disappear.

Taekwoon’s sleeping on the sofa when Hongbin opens the bathroom door, even though it’s the middle of the day, but he wakes up instantly, sitting up with alarm. “Hongbin? Are you alright?”

 _No._ “I will be,” he lies, meeting Taekwoon’s eyes and being silently thankful that he cannot read minds any longer. “Are you alright?”

“Not… exactly.” Taekwoon’s fingers clench in the blanket he’s got clutched to his chest. When Hongbin doesn’t say anything, he sighs. “I’m very… lost.”

Hongbin makes his way over to the sofa, and Taekwoon scoots up so he can sit down. “Sorry. That’s my fault. I just… needed some time.”

Taekwoon nods with sympathetic eyes, and for a long time they sit in a comfortable silence. “I am sorry,” he murmurs, and leans forward to touch Hongbin’s knee. “I will not pretend to understand why you gave up everything for me. But I appreciate it. I am just… adjusting.”

“We both are,” Hongbin says with a smile that’s strained—but less strained than it would have been a few days ago. He’s making progress. “I can’t sleep in that bathroom anymore, though. I can’t stretch out, and it’s killing my back. I was thinking—”

But Taekwoon doesn’t let him finish. With a smile he gets off the sofa and rummages in the bottom drawer of the chest of drawers, pulling out a mound of blankets with a flourish. “I’ll sleep on the floor!” he says happily, and throws the blankets onto the floor in front of the television. “You can have the sofa.”

That’s not what Hongbin had in mind at all—he was going to say he was going to go see if he could rent an apartment in the same building—but when he’s faced with Taekwoon wiggling happily into his blanket pile, smiling up at Hongbin, the very picture of innocence (with messy hair), he just doesn’t have the heart to say no. “Sure,” he croaks, and lays down, pulling the blanket over him.

He’s enveloped in various Taekwoon smells, all of them pleasant—there’s his new human scent from the blanket he’s been using, as well as the faintest trace of angel blood from when he popped a stitch on the new sofa. It doesn’t smell like home, not really, but it’s comforting somehow in a way he can’t be bothered to examine, so he stretches out and falls asleep almost instantly.

//

Hongbin’s eyes snap open at sunset, but he doesn’t move for a long while. Part of him wishes he was still in the bathroom; the sadness there was hard to escape from, which is exactly what he deserves. Here it’s almost hard to be depressed, especially when he rolls over and sees Taekwoon sleeping peacefully, a ghost of what might even be a smile on his face. He makes snuffly noises when he rolls over, flinging an arm out, and Hongbin thinks that like this, he couldn’t harm a fly.

He wakes up when Hongbin’s buttoning up a shirt, and sits up from his blanket pile sleepily. “Hello,” he says, and rubs his eyes. “Where are you going?”

“I’m going to get my car and bring it back here.” If they’re going to live here for a long time, Hongbin needs his car; catching public transport everywhere is a pain and will probably be overwhelming for Taekwoon at first. The only problem with that is his car, and the keys, are still at home.

Taekwoon raises an eyebrow, but nods. “Ah. I assume it is at… your house.”

“With Sanghyuk, yes.”

“Good luck.” When Hongbin stands up, Taekwoon clutches the blankets a little tighter around himself. “Don’t… don’t get killed, please.”

He means it as a joke, but there’s an undercurrent of genuine need in his voice, so Hongbin softens and offers him a big smile, the one he reserves for when someone is in real need of cheering up. It’s not one Taekwoon’s seen before, because he blinks back, eyes wide. “I won’t! I’ll see you in a bit.”

It’s not getting killed by Sanghyuk he’s worried about, he realises as he shuts the door behind him, checking that it’s locked. It’s the things he might say, the way he could tear Hongbin in two once more, crack open his ribs and make playthings out of his heart and lungs. He has no doubt that Sanghyuk would do that, and as he starts walking, sends a prayer up to whoever is listening that they don’t see each other.

//

He stands outside the front door of his apartment for what feels like hours.

He can register the pattern of Sanghyuk and Hakyeon’s heartbeats from miles away; he could pick them out in a crowd of a thousand while blindfolded easily. It sounds like they’re sleeping, which means if he’s quiet—and he will be—he’ll be able to get in and out without being seen. But it’s not this that makes him hesitate. It’s the way he can’t stop thinking of the way Sanghyuk had looked, falling apart in his arms, angrier than Hongbin has ever seen him, angry at _him_.

There’s nothing to be done, though. He could stand here for hours, days, years, and still not put his hand on the doorknob. Better yet he could go back to the bathroom and lie down and not move until he goes rabid from thirst. Even better still he could find a sunny spot and wait until Taekwoon’s blood leaves his system, let the sun claim him, taking nothing but what he deserves.

But he has to take care of Taekwoon.

He keys in the code and opens the door quietly, poking his head around cautiously; there’s no yell, no angry footsteps, so he lets himself in, leaving the door open behind him. Sometimes he leaves his keys in the bowl near the front door, but the bowl is empty which means they’re probably in the bedroom, and he turns to head that way and—and is stopped by them.

They’re lying on the floor in the living room, on top of the rug that Sanghyuk had been so excited to buy. Hongbin had thought it hysterical that he was so enthusiastic about a rug, but he’d found it less funny when Sanghyuk had pushed him down onto it the day after it was delivered and had ridden him until dawn, until they were both sweaty and aching and so swept up in love for each other they were nearly blinded by it. Hongbin almost wishes he had been blinded, because then he wouldn’t have to see this: Sanghyuk and Hakyeon, naked, still damp, sleeping twined in each other’s arms. His stomach twists with jealousy and he clenches a fist. It’s not that he cares that Sanghyuk fucks Hakyeon—he’s never pretended to understand a bond between incubi—because he doesn’t. They can do what they like. But he’s never seen the aftermath, never seen Sanghyuk snuggle closer to Hakyeon in his sleep; he looks so peaceful and content that the thought of him finding that happiness in Hakyeon’s arms, after what happened between them, makes him look away and sway there for a moment. He deserves this, he knows he does, but that doesn’t make it hurt any less.

He gets his keys and leaves, clutching them so hard they leave a deep imprint on his palm, running his tongue over his fangs as he goes. He doesn’t see Sanghyuk sit up and watch him leave. He doesn’t see Hakyeon stir, ask, “what’s wrong?” and pull Sanghyuk close again.

He certainly doesn’t see Sanghyuk, face a delicate mask about to crack, kiss Hakyeon robotically. “Nothing,” he says, but it’s a lie and they both know it.

//

Taekwoon comes to a halt in front of the car, baulking, the nervousness written all over him. “Where are we going?”

“To a mall. Why?” Hongbin opens the door for him, figuring he’ll do the gentlemanly thing if it helps to soothe Taekwoon’s nerves, but he doesn’t move, just stays standing there illuminated by the shitty strip lighting in the apartment’s garage. “Taekwoon, what’s wrong?”

Taekwoon chews his lip, the movement so human that Hongbin has to do a double take. He’s still not used to that. He’s not used to getting a familiar human signature from Taekwoon instead of nothingness or lavender, and he’s not used to Taekwoon’s eerily human gestures. He’s certainly not used to Taekwoon’s teeth. Hongbin has been seeing him with fangs for so long that to see him without them almost hurts some well-buried part of him, although he doesn’t know why, and doesn’t bother examining it further. They feel off-kilter somehow. By the end of those two months—before Jiho—they’d been comfortable… but now they seem to have taken a step back.

“I am mortal,” he whispers, and when his eyes flick up to meet Hongbin’s, the fear there is overwhelmingly evident. “Mortals can die. Mortals _do_ die in these.” Here he gestures at Hongbin’s car.

“I thought you wanted to die.”

“I do,” Taekwoon replies instantly, and then looks away. “Did. I don’t know. But whatever happens I want it to be on my terms… not the terms of a human who cannot control their own vehicle.”

Hongbin doesn’t say anything for a long while. What can he say? That they’re making progress, that he’s at least relieved that Taekwoon doesn’t seem to want to die anymore? It doesn’t seem appropriate, so he just shrugs. “I’m a good driver. I’ll be careful with you.” When Taekwoon doesn’t say anything, Hongbin steps forward and offers him a pinky finger; it’s not a ritual he learned when he was mortal but rather one he has picked up from Sanghyuk. “Promise.”

Taekwoon stares at it for a long while, and then slowly, haltingly, brings his pinky up and loops it around Hongbin’s. “Promise,” he murmurs, like he’s trying the word on for size. He offers Hongbin a smile. “Alright. Let’s go.”

Staying true to his word, Hongbin drives like an elderly mortal, staying well under the speed limit and not taking risks in the short time it takes them to drive to the twenty-four hour mall nearest the apartment. Taekwoon spends the entire time with his hands clenched into fists, and he only relaxes when Hongbin puts the car into park and shifts off the ignition. They don’t move, though, and Hongbin is loath to uncurl his hands from around the wheel, although he doesn’t know why.

“Are you alright?” Taekwoon asks, and reaches out to touch Hongbin before reconsidering, his hand shrinking back as if remembering he can’t read anything that way anymore. “Did you see Sanghyuk? At the apartment?”

Hongbin can’t, won’t, meet his eyes. “Yeah. I did. He was with Hakyeon.”

“Oh. _Oh_ ,” Taekwoon says as he catches Hongbin’s meaning; faintly Hongbin realises he’s more savvy than he lets on. “I’m… sorry? Did they say anything?”

“They were asleep,” Hongbin replies shortly, and then unbuckles his seatbelt and opens his door, trying to get away from the hideous sadness weighing on his chest like a weight he does not know how to shift. “Come on. Let’s go.”

He speedwalks across the carpark, leaving Taekwoon to catch up and not caring much if he does. But sure enough he hears the squeak of sneakers on concrete as Taekwoon jogs after him, and then he’s being stopped by a hand on his shoulder. “Hongbin.” Taekwoon spins him around so they’re facing each other, and he looks deadly serious. “Wait. I’m sorry if I offended you by asking about Sanghyuk. I don't really know what is… appropriate.”

Horrible feelings—despair and resentment, twin weights pressing in on his chest—rise in him as he stares at Taekwoon. His face must be an open book, because Taekwoon drops his hand and takes a step away.

“You are never going to forgive me, are you?” Taekwoon murmurs, almost to himself.

For a moment Hongbin thinks he’s not going to, the resentment swelling in him like a hateful wave, one that’s just begging to be unleashed on Taekwoon; he’s standing there ready to take it, ever the victim. But the moment Hongbin thinks it he sags, shoulders rounding in. Taekwoon is just as much to blame in this as he is, and it’s unfair to resent him for something that is ultimately out of his control and that he never asked for in the first place—his humanity and the consequences that have come with it.

“I’m sorry,” Hongbin starts, but Taekwoon doesn’t look at him. “Taekwoon. Hey. I’m really sorry. I’ve already forgiven you. It’s fine.”

Taekwoon finally meets his eyes, and he looks so hopeful that Hongbin can’t stand it, he can’t _stand_ it, so moving on instinct—and figuring Taekwoon will appreciate the contact, something he’s clearly been missing—he pulls Taekwoon in for a hug. Taekwoon returns the hug immediately, his hands sliding around Hongbin’s waist to pull him closer, and it’s not until Hongbin’s hands settle on Taekwoon’s back between his shoulderblades that he realises that this is the first time they have properly hugged. It’s nice. He never thought he’d think that, that it could be nice, but it is. They fit together nicely, and the moment he thinks that they both spring away from each other in sync; Taekwoon can no longer read minds, and he certainly didn’t pick up on that, but he’s blushing as they start walking wordlessly towards the mall entrance. The silence between them is suddenly awkward, and Hongbin wonders.

//

It’s Taekwoon who spots him first, and he goes white as a sheet and drops the bags he’s carrying. Milk splatters everywhere, up the nearest wall, but Hongbin’s too busy crouching over and extending his fangs to care about that; all that matters is the threat—the threat that turns out to be Sanghyuk, standing at the apartment door, eyes wide.

“Hongbin,” Taekwoon says, voice rising in pitch as he backs up until he slams into 302’s door—not that it matters, since only a few of the apartments in this building are occupied. “Hongbin, Hongbin, Hongbin—”

Hongbin takes a step in front of him, forcing himself to straighten up because it’s Sanghyuk, for God’s sake, and he doesn’t have a dagger in hand. “It’s fine,” he murmurs to Taekwoon, although he can sense him trembling. To Sanghyuk, he says, “Are you here to hurt him?”

Sanghyuk’s eyes widen, but he shakes his head. “No. No… I’m here to talk to you.” He grimaces, and it’s such a familiar look that Hongbin’s chest tightens a little bit. “If it’s a bad time, I can leave.”

“Go inside,” Hongbin says not unkindly, turning to Taekwoon and touching him briefly on the shoulder, “and unpack the groceries, okay? Turn on the TV or something.”

Taekwoon looks like he’s barely holding it together—his heart is racing so fast it sounds like it’s about to burst out of his chest, and his breath is coming in weird little pants, his eyes as wide as saucers. Still he nods and returns Hongbin’s touch on the shoulder, his lingering a little longer. “It’s nearly sunrise,” he hisses through gritted teeth, and when Hongbin draws his eyebrows together in confusion leans forward. “It’s nearly _sunrise_.”

Then he shoves his way past Hongbin to the door. “I’m sorry,” he says to Sanghyuk, hands trembling as he punches in the code. “I’m sorry.”

The door shuts behind him, leaving Hongbin and Sanghyuk in the hallway, his last words to Hongbin hovering in the air between them. _It’s nearly sunrise_. What the hell did he mean? It’s not like it matters if it’s nearly sunrise, Hongbin can’t burn—

He can’t burn.

He can’t burn, and Sanghyuk is standing in front of him.

This is what Taekwoon has given him.

//

“I can’t stay for long,” Sanghyuk says, fidgeting on the spot as they stand on the street outside the apartment. He gestures to the east, where the sky is already lightening. “I… made myself come late, so I would have an excuse to leave.”

Hongbin nods. “I understand.”

There’s a chasm between them the likes of which he has never felt before. The man standing opposite him is not a stranger, but he’s looking at Hongbin like _he_ might be one. He thought he was doing okay, but having Sanghyuk in front of him is cutting through all the pathetic defenses he’s put up against the world, and all of a sudden he feels like he’s back on the bathroom floor again, sobbing his heart out because he’s lost the one thing he keeps living for.

Sanghyuk’s voice startles him out of his melancholy. “He’s afraid of me.”

“Of course he is. He’s human. You could kill him in a heartbeat.”

“You don’t get it.” Sanghyuk shakes his head. “ _He’s_ afraid of _me_. Do you have any idea what that feels like? All these fucking years I’ve spent with his ghost following me and—and now he’s the one that’s scared for his life.”

“I don’t—”

“And you’re still defending him,” Sanghyuk spits, taking a step forward to jab Hongbin in the chest. “Even now. Even _protecting_ him. Wouldn’t it be funny if I did what he did to me? If I fucking stabbed him and left him to bleed out in a fucking alley? Then you’d have to turn him, and I bet you’d love that—”

“He’s terrified of you and all you can do is mock him?” Hongbin says, his voice remarkably calm even as he feels like he is dying. “Sanghyuk… this isn’t you.”

It’s not the Sanghyuk he fell in love with, at least. This is the Sanghyuk that feels like he’s cornered, that’s snapping and biting like a beaten dog. “Oh, this isn’t _me?_ That’s a bit fucking rich coming from _you_.” Sanghyuk shakes his head, and he looks absolutely livid. “How long? How fucking long were you hiding him under my nose and lying to me about it? God, I was such a—I was so stupid to believe you when you said you were just worried about vampire politics! That’s the worst part of it all, that I _believed_ you.”

“Sanghyuk—”

“I don’t even know who you are. The Hongbin I know wouldn’t have done this. The Hongbin I know wouldn’t have saved his fucking life—”

“Sanghyuk, listen—”

“No, you listen!” Sanghyuk shrieks with enough pitch and volume to wake up the whole street, his shifting making him go fuzzy at the edges. “I don’t even want to—the sun.” Cutting himself off mid-sentence, he goes hideously pale, eyes widening as he looks up into the sky. “Hongbin, the sun, Hongbin, oh God you’re going to _burn_ —”

The sun rises and Hongbin can finally see what Sanghyuk looks like underneath its rays. He is a thousand times more beautiful than anything his imagination could have conjured up, and Hongbin’s heart sings, even though he was sure it was broken.

“Will you listen to me and let me explain?” he says, taking a hesitant step closer.

“But the sun…” Sanghyuk’s voice is just a breath on the air, and he reaches out and brushes his fingers along Hongbin’s cheek. “You… you should be dead. How are you not dead? Why aren’t you burning?”

Hongbin catches Sanghyuk’s hand and brings it to his lips, kissing his knuckles and keeping his hand there so Sanghyuk can feel his lips moving. “I’ll tell you everything,” he whispers. “We have time.”

Sanghyuk does not pull his hand away.

//

Eventually they make their way to a small nearby park and settle on the grass. Hongbin tips his head back to sunbathe, and he can feel Sanghyuk’s eyes on him, just watching him and drinking it in. “You should be dead…” he keeps muttering under his breath, and the blood still hasn’t returned to his face. “Why aren’t you dead?”

It takes hours for Hongbin to tell the whole tale. He leaves nothing out, even the awful parts, because it’s Sanghyuk and to understand he has to hear the entire story. He tells it all as neutrally as he can, keeping his feelings out of it, but they bleed through in the form of pity for Taekwoon and the immense, crushing guilt he had felt at lying to everyone. When he comes to the end, he has to tell this with his eyes closed, as robotically as he can; the image of Taekwoon sacrificing himself for him has never left him. He doubts it ever will.

Sanghyuk is silent for a while after that, digesting what he’s been told. When he finally looks up and meets Hongbin’s eyes, he can read the anger and sadness in there, this time mired by indecision. “He saved you,” he whispers. “He was ready to die for you. He’s lived this long and he was going to give it all up… for you.”

“That’s what I was trying to tell you.”

Sanghyuk holds his gaze for a moment before looking away again. “I still hate him.”

“That’s fine.”

“I still hate you.”

This is a knife to Hongbin’s heart, pain on top of pain; he thought he couldn’t hurt any more, but apparently he was wrong. “That’s fine,” he says again, but it comes out garbled.

“But this… I don’t know what to do with this information,” Sanghyuk murmurs, fiddling with a blade of grass. “It’s easy to hate him. It comes naturally. But… God. I don’t know. This is so fucking complicated. He did a really good thing, but it doesn’t cancel out what he did to me. To Jaehwan hyung. To Wonshik hyung.”

“Of course not. He knows that. But I think that… I know that he has changed. I saw it for myself. And to condemn what he is now for what he has done in the past…” he shrugs. “I can’t bring myself to do it.”

Sanghyuk’s shaking his head slowly. “I don’t… I don’t know what to say. I don’t… know. I don’t know what’s right and what’s wrong. I don’t think you did the right thing… but I don’t think it was the wrong thing either. Fuck!” He flings the blade of grass to the side and runs a hand through his hair, exasperated. “My head hurts. Why can’t this be easy?”

Taking a chance, Hongbin reaches for Sanghyuk’s hand, linking their fingers together. Sanghyuk doesn’t pull away, and he nearly faints with the relief of it. “When have things ever been easy with us?”

“For the last seven years things were pretty easy,” Sanghyuk replies bitterly.

He’s not wrong, and Hongbin doesn’t have an answer in reply, so he just leans in to kiss him. He half expects to get slapped but Sanghyuk kisses him back instead, his mouth as inviting and familiar as always, and with the sun beaming down on them Hongbin wishes more than anything that they found themselves here under different circumstances. It’s almost cruel, really. He can finally walk in the sun and Sanghyuk wants nothing to do with him.

“This doesn’t change things,” Sanghyuk murmurs as he pulls away, hand on Hongbin’s face. “You still broke my fucking heart, Hongbin. Seeing you hurts. We’re still broken up.”

“I know,” Hongbin murmurs, but pulls Sanghyuk in for another kiss even though his heart is shattered all over again—because what is he if not a glutton for punishment?

//

When he makes his way back inside, Taekwoon is sitting in the middle of his blanket pile, watching the TV just as Hongbin told him to. He switches it off when he hears the door and whirls around, eyes wide. “I’m sorry,” he blurts, and clenches his fist on the nearest blanket. “I am sorry if he was mad at you because of me—”

“It’s fine,” Hongbin croaks, and settles on the edge of Taekwoon’s blanket pile, suddenly exhausted. “We talked. He still hates me, but at least he knows my reasons for saving you. That’s something, I suppose.”

“Hongbin, your face,” Taekwoon gasps, leaning forward to cup Hongbin’s cheek briefly in such a mirror of how Sanghyuk was a few minutes ago that it sends shivers down Hongbin’s spine. “Are you alright?”

“Yes, why? What’s wrong with my face?”

Taekwoon sits there, his mouth open for a few seconds, before he looks away and swallows. “It’s burnt,” he whispers, his hand moving down to cup Hongbin’s chin and turn his face from side-to-side. “You’re all red. I think my blood…”

But he doesn’t have to finish his sentence. His blood is working its way out of Hongbin’s system. Soon he’ll no longer be immune to the sun, will be relegated to the stifling confines of moonlight once more, and while he knew it was coming the reality hits him and he has to close his eyes so he doesn’t start crying. “Well, we knew it was coming, right? It was only a matter of time.”

For once, Taekwoon doesn’t apologise, even though Hongbin can tell he is burning to. Instead he just reaches for Hongbin’s hand and winds their fingers together, squeezing gently. They sit there together for a long while, until Hongbin’s eyes slip closed and he starts swaying on the spot.

“You’re tired,” Taekwoon whispers, and before Hongbin knows it Taekwoon’s pushing him so he’s lying down and then draping a blanket over him. “Sleep.”

He should probably move to the sofa, but he can’t be bothered to get up. He’s warm and comfortable in Taekwoon’s pile of blankets and utterly exhausted after all that’s happened today. Perhaps that’s why he doesn’t move when he feels Taekwoon lie down next to him and then shuffle closer. Perhaps he’s just craving contact after what happened with Sanghyuk, which is why he reaches for Taekwoon to pull him close. They end up twined together, Taekwoon’s head on his chest, and before Hongbin can really think twice about it Taekwoon sighs happily and burrows even closer, one arm snaking around Hongbin’s waist. Maybe he is just as much Hakyeon’s child as he is Wonshik’s, because the touch soothes the maelstrom of feelings ripping its way through his chest, and he’s able to fall backwards into sleep easily.


	3. Chapter 3

He wakes in darkness with Taekwoon wrapped around him like a vine, and has to lie there for a long while before he can even parse that fact. It’s cosy underneath the blankets, and Taekwoon’s slow thudding heartbeat is comforting to hear; that he’s even thinking that is an indication of something new, although he’s not really sure what. He never expected to become this comfortable with Taekwoon, to the extent that they’re sharing a bed, and as Taekwoon rolls over and presses his face into Hongbin’s neck a sudden paralysing bolt of guilt shoots through him. It’s bad enough that he’s consorting with Sanghyuk’s murderer, but to be cuddled up in bed with him?

The bathroom—and everything it represents—beckons. It would be so easy to lie there and give up. Everything worth living for has been torn from him by his own stupidity, and he has no chance of getting it back. Sanghyuk knows why he did it, now, but he still hasn’t forgiven. Hongbin doesn’t know if he ever will. He doubts Wonshik and Hakyeon have the capacity to.

He is nothing.

The only thing stopping him from getting up and walking out of the apartment, out of this damn city and never looking back, is Taekwoon (as if he can still read Hongbin’s thoughts he tightens his hold, eyebrows furrowing in his sleep). He still can’t cope with mortal life, that much is clear. Hongbin needs to help him. Then he will disappear. He will go somewhere far away and vanish out of the hearts and minds of everyone who ever knew him, away from this city so choked with memories of Sanghyuk, and now that he has a plan, he is galvanised.

Taekwoon’s heartbeat changes, speeds up a little bit, and the moment Hongbin realises he’s awake he also realises that his fangs have popped out, and that the thirst is rising in him once more. It’s not biting; he doesn’t need to feed right now. But it’s more present than it’s been for months, and with its rearrival comes sadness, because he knows what it represents.

“Morning,” Taekwoon murmurs against the skin of Hongbin’s neck, so intimate that Hongbin grits his teeth. “Or evening, I suppose.”

He would be able to cope with this if he wasn’t so hungry, maybe, but with the feeding urge letting itself be known this is making shivers run up and down his spine. “Yeah,” he says, and scoots away from Taekwoon, who lets him go. “Do you have any plans for today? Because I had an idea for what we could do.”

“I don’t have any plans.” Taekwoon sits up and stretches and yawns, his shirt hanging off his shoulder and exposing an awful lot of pale unmarred skin, and Hongbin has to look away. This is fucking with his head, and he doesn’t like it. “What is your idea?”

“I’ll teach you how to use public transport. We can get buses and the subway and stuff.”

Taekwoon meets his gaze for a moment and then looks away, frowning. “I know how to catch the subway,” he says, quietly. “Why the urgency? Do I need to learn this right now?”

 _The sooner you learn the sooner I can leave_ , Hongbin thinks, but he can’t say that. Instead he just shakes his head. “I just want you to be able to take care of yourself in case something happens to me.”

At this Taekwoon’s head snaps back up, and he’s staring at Hongbin with such intensity that Hongbin thinks that maybe he doesn’t need to be able to read minds—surely he can discern the guilt written in his face, in the way he looks down at his hands.

“Alright,” Taekwoon says, after a long silence that says more than words ever could. “But I… I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

Hongbin has to close his eyes for a moment, because Taekwoon says those words with so much vulnerability his voice is wavering, and the sound of that is a punch to the chest, nearly enough to restart his centuries-dead heart. But he just inhales, exhales, tries to ignore the thud-thud of Taekwoon’s heart in his ears even though it’s all he’s been hearing since it restarted on Jaehwan’s coffee table, and thinks of Sanghyuk. The pain sharpens his focus and fuels his urgency, and he’s able to get up with ease. “Nothing will happen to me!” he lies, with a smile that probably looks as fake as it feels, as well as doing a great job at showing off his fangs. “Come on! Let’s go. We can get dinner out as well.”

He doesn’t move as Taekwoon gets up and approaches, slowly, and cups his cheek. He opens his mouth obligingly when Taekwoon tugs his chin, and stiffens when Taekwoon runs a finger along his fangs, deliberately piercing his own finger on them and pulling back to look at the drop of blood welling up there. “You need to feed,” he says, and it is not a question but a statement.

“Yeah, soon.”

“You can feed on me,” Taekwoon says, and tilts his head to the side, exposing his neck. “I know it is not… I know my blood is probably not as good as before. But it is yours.” He swallows, loudly. “Everything is yours.”

Hongbin wills himself to look away, to take a step back. “I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I—” he starts, and then doesn’t even know how to begin explaining the complexities of feeding on a human, and how different it will be to when Taekwoon was an angel; he doesn’t want to explain that if he does it more than once, Taekwoon will start changing. “I can’t.”

“Why not?” Taekwoon asks again, insistent, stepping forward and putting himself into Hongbin’s personal space once more. “You did it before.”

“I _can’t_ ,” Hongbin hisses, letting his eyes flare red, letting Taekwoon see his irritation. “Feeding from a human is completely different to feeding on an angel. For you, I mean.” He sees Taekwoon start to protest, but shuts him down with a shake of his head. “I’m not explaining it and I’m not doing it. So don’t ask.”

For a moment he thinks Taekwoon’s going to do something dramatic, but instead he just nods and withdraws, slinking back into the safety of his blanket pile without another word. Hongbin sighs and scrubs his eyes with his hands. He knew taking care of Taekwoon would be difficult; of course he knew that. He just didn’t realise it would be this difficult. He wants to tear his hair out.

“Come on,” he says to the lump under the blankets. “Get dressed. We’re going in ten.”

Taekwoon grunts, and Hongbin smiles.

//

“T-money card,” Hongbin says, waving his card in the air. “Machine.” He places the card in the slot and presses the button on the screen labeled _Top-up_. “Top up. Put the money in.” He feeds a ten thousand won note through the slot and waits. “And done. Your turn.”

Taekwoon screws up his face in confusion and gets as far as putting the money in the machine, where he keeps trying to feed the machine a fifty thousand won note instead of the five thousand note he’d selected. His incompetence continues, because he taps his card on the wrong side of the gate and gets stuck on the other side, and Hongbin has to jump over and rescue him. He nearly misses the train because he’s standing there gawking at the automatic doors on the platform. He makes a beeline for the nearest seat—the elderly seats—and hisses when Hongbin pulls him away, complaining the whole time about how he’s older than everyone in the train combined (he isn’t wrong, exactly, but still). Then he nearly falls over when the train brakes suddenly. He is nothing like the calm, collected ex-angel Hongbin knows him to be; he is suddenly bumbling and incompetent, dropping his t-money card and nearly leaving it behind, tripping over people on the train, being too loud.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Hongbin hisses as they’re leaving the subway, Taekwoon tapping his card correctly this time. “Did you leave your brain at home or something?”

But Taekwoon just shrugs, like his sudden transformation into an idiot is no big deal. “Sorry,” he says, but he doesn’t sound sorry at all.

Hongbin’s actually made a list of all the things they need to do, and looking at it—as they’re in McDonalds, because Taekwoon had insisted—is almost overwhelming. Taekwoon as he is doesn’t exist in the eyes of the government, so he needs identification (beyond his library card), a forged degree, a bank account. Hongbin knows how to get those things together in theory, but he’s never had to do it in practice; when he was made Wonshik sorted everything for him with the identification he already had from the occupied government. Wonshik, as far as Hongbin knows, has official documents but rarely uses them. He just glamours as he needs instead, but Taekwoon can’t do that, and none of the others can help. Hongbin somehow needs to get Taekwoon into the system, but he doesn’t even really know where to begin.

“Could you drink this?” Taekwoon says, interrupting Hongbin’s swirling storm of worries by pressing his drink against Hongbin’s bare arm, making him jump at the cold.

“Is it a liquid?” Hongbin replies, barely shooting him a glance.

“I think so. Well. It’s rather viscous,” Taekwoon replies, and when Hongbin looks up he’s tilting his thickshake from side to side, eyes narrowed. “Want to try some? It’s quite delicious.”

“Can’t have thickshakes. I tried one once.” Hongbin turns back to his phone and shudders at the memory. “Hakyeon hyung insisted. It wasn’t fun.”

“What happens if you have food?”

“I throw up. Violently. Blood everywhere. It’s gross and messy.”

The worst part, he realises, is that he needs to get all this shit done as soon as possible, before Taekwoon’s blood makes its way out of his system entirely and he burns properly when he’s in the sun. So not tonight but rather tomorrow, which at least makes him feel a little better.

“That would be awful,” Taekwoon says, examining a fry. “Food is amazing. I cannot believe I went so long without it.”

“I don’t have an appetite for it anymore,” Hongbin sighs, locking his phone and slipping it back in his pocket. “Come on. Hurry up.”

Taekwoon nods and upends the entire carton of fries in his mouth, downing them with surprising grace considering he can’t shapeshift his mouth bigger. When he looks at Hongbin, though, with a mouth full of fries and his cheeks bulging out, he can’t hold in his laughter. They’re both cackling as they leave, Hongbin dragging Taekwoon by the wrist, but Taekwoon’s more snorting and trying not to choke by the sounds of it. He manages to swallow and then gives Hongbin a shove as they spill into the street, still laughing his head off. “I nearly died, Hongbin!”

But those words trigger a memory he’s been trying to suppress, and Sanghyuk’s words come back, just as painful as the first time he’d said them. _Then you’d have to turn him, and I bet you’d love that._ He’d just been lashing out, Hongbin knows, but… But he hadn’t even considered, hadn’t thought. The possibility appears in front of him, as obvious as a flashing neon sign, and while Taekwoon’s still laughing he turns to him and says, as easily as anything, “Taekwoon, I could turn you, if you wanted.”

Taekwoon stops laughing instantly. “What?”

“I could… I could turn you. Into a vampire.” When Taekwoon doesn’t say anything, is still standing there frozen, Hongbin looks away. “I mean, only if you wanted.”

“Oh,” Taekwoon whispers, so small and quiet it’s like he is fading away. It’s obvious the possibility has never occurred to him, just as it hadn’t occurred to Hongbin. “Oh. I…”

“You don’t have to decide right now,” Hongbin blurts. “You could just think about it—”

“No.” Taekwoon stands up straight, but his hands are pressed against his ribs, where Hongbin knows his tattoos are. “No. I don’t—I cannot. This is my punishment. I deserve it. It is more than I deserve.” Hongbin starts to say something, but he shakes his head. “I need to die, Hongbin. The universe is telling me that. I do not even think it would work, with the magic in my tattoos.”

Well. That’s that, then. Hongbin won’t lie to himself; he’s more than a little sad as they turn and start walking in silence, their earlier mirth gone in the wake of that conversation. The concept of having Taekwoon around forever was once heinous, but now doesn’t sound like such a bad idea after all. But it’s clearly not meant to be. All he can do is prepare Taekwoon for the mortal life he has left.

//

He sleeps on the sofa that night despite Taekwoon’s pout and his constant insistence that the blanket pile is comfortable and warm, and wakes in the morning to someone banging on the door like they’re trying to break in. He opens the door with fangs bared and eyes flaring and cringes back into the cover of shade once he realises it’s a deliveryman, offering him a small device to sign. “What is this?” he says, retracting his fangs and darting into the sunlight to sign for whatever it is before stepping back into the shade. “I didn’t order anything.”

“It says to deliver to a Jung Taekwoon at this address,” the human replies, and shrugs. “That’s you, right? Do you want us to bring it in, or will you do it?”

When he steps aside, Hongbin can see he’s standing in front of, of all things, another sofa. This one’s a bit bigger than the small one inside, and is upholstered in black leather rather than brown fabric, but he has no fucking idea why Taekwoon would order yet another sofa. It’s not like the apartment has much room for it, anyway, and he remains mystified as the deliverymen—another one was waiting in the hallway out of sight and Hongbin was far too distracted to hear his heartbeat—drag the sofa instead and then leave.

“Oh!” Taekwoon says, sitting up from his nest. “It’s here!”

Hongbin turns, and he almost wishes he could shapeshift steam coming out his nose so Taekwoon could accurately understand how angry he is. “Did you use my laptop to buy this?” he gets out through gritted teeth. Taekwoon nods, and he curls his hands into fists. “So you used my credit card to buy another sofa that we _don’t fucking need—”_

“No, no! Look!” Taekwoon scrambles up and over to the sofa, where he pulls off the label attached to the arm of the sofa and waves it in Hongbin’s face. “It’s a sofa _bed_! We can share! That way I don’t have to sleep on the floor and your legs don’t have to hang over the end of the sofa!”

Hongbin closes his eyes so he doesn’t rip Taekwoon’s face off, partially because he’s still angry but also partially because Taekwoon’s so cute he doesn’t really know what to do with the warm feelings that swell in his chest. “How much was it?” he asks, rubbing his temples.

“I went for the best one! I thought it would be more comfortable—”

“How much was it?”

“Fifteen million?” Taekwoon replies, with all the innocence of someone who has no concept of how much things cost, and Hongbin nearly blacks out. Instead of doing that, or punching Taekwoon into next week, he turns and puts his fist through the wall next to the door. The remnants of Taekwoon’s blood means he punches straight through the drywall and when he pulls his aching fist free there’s now a hole streaming sunlight into the apartment, but he couldn’t care less.

“You bought a fifteen million won sofa!” he screeches, thinking of how long it had taken just to _earn_ fifteen million on a freelance translators salary. “Taekwoon I can’t fucking believe you—”

“Your hand!” Taekwoon shrieks back, reaching for Hongbin’s hand. “It’s broken—”

Hongbin pulls away though, looking down at his hand and wincing. “It’s not broken,” he mutters, and looks up at Taekwoon as he yanks at his finger to put it back into place, a power move. “It’s just dislocated.”

There’s a sharp sting of pain and then relief as the joint slides back into place, and his gums throb with the feeding urge, that little burst of healing having taken more out of his supply. Taekwoon is standing entirely too close, his pulse thudding far too loud, so Hongbin shoves past him to sit on the fifteen _million_ sofa, closing his eyes so he doesn’t throw Taekwoon into the wall next to the hole.

“I’m sorry,” Taekwoon murmurs, reaching for Hongbin’s hand, but Hongbin yanks it away. “I…”

“Don’t,” Hongbin says, and then he gets up and walks into the sun just to avoid talking to him.

//

The day is painful. Hongbin barely speaks to Taekwoon the whole time they’re out running errands—it’s near the end of summer but he’s wearing a turtleneck and sunglasses and even gloves, which gets him weird looks in public but is better than burning—and Taekwoon’s attempts at conversation fall flat. Hongbin’s not sure what stings more: the loss of fifteen million or the fact Taekwoon hadn’t even bothered to tell him. He isn’t exactly rolling in money like the others. He has enough to keep him comfortable but he hates spending it, and he doesn’t think he’s ever even spent fifteen million in one go before.

He glamours the government employee with ease, almost bored, and before they know it Taekwoon’s entered in the system as Jung Taekwoon with the birthdate that he chose, for whatever reason, for his library card, 1990/11/10. They leave with a social security number and an shiny new ID card and with a passport application lodged, and so Hongbin doesn’t even have to glamour the bank teller to open an account. The degree forgery is a little more complicated—Hongbin has to text Wonshik’s contact and wait for news—but by sunset Taekwoon is a genuine productive citizen with a bachelors in history, and Hongbin is exhausted. He’s tried to avoid the sun as much as he can, but he’s still burnt, and his body has been healing from that all day and so he is now running dangerously low on energy.

“I think tomorrow is probably the last day I can go out in the sun,” he murmurs, sitting on the new sofa and melting into the buttery-soft leather. “And I need to feed soon, too.”

Taekwoon perches on the arm of the sofa, trailing his fingers over the inside of his arm. “The offer is still open,” he replies, and then looks at Hongbin. “You are always welcome to feed from me.”

“I’m not doing that.” Hongbin shakes his head, his face hot, refusing to explain further.

“Fine.” Taekwoon looks down, his hair hanging in his eyes, and Hongbin reminds himself to take him to get it cut. It’s looking a little shaggy and unkempt, although he supposes Taekwoon doesn’t particularly care. “I have an idea.”

“Oh?”

“Feel free to say no,” Taekwoon says slowly, “but I thought perhaps, maybe, we could go somewhere nice and watch the sunrise. Because you won’t be able to see it anymore.” When Hongbin doesn’t reply, he hesitates still. “I thought we could go to the beach.”

The last time they were at a beach together seems a lifetime away, but Hongbin remembers it all too-well: the waves of power washing over them, the way the circle had broken, the way Taekwoon had screamed when Jaehwan cut his arm off. It’s not something he wants to be reminded of. “Jesus, Taekwoon,” he snaps, leaning away. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Do you not think it is a painful memory for me too?” Taekwoon replies quietly, looking at the back of his hands. “That is the point. We can take a place of a horrible memory and turn it to a good one—”

Hongbin’s residual irritation over the sofa bleeds into anger, and he snarls, standing up and pacing back and forth in the tiny apartment, now made even tinier by the abundance of Taekwoon’s shit everywhere. “I get it,” he spits, “but I don’t know if I want to make nice new memories with you, Taekwoon. I don’t want to pretend the past never happened—”

“That’s not what I—” Taekwoon gasps, looking up, but Hongbin is too far gone on his anger to care.

“Whatever,” he growls, and leaves, slamming the door behind him so violently it nearly rips off its hinges.

//

After so long of not needing to feed, indulging in his vampire instincts almost feels like he has regressed, somehow, back to the depraved creature he once was. But it feels good, too; he’s missed hunting, missed tracking prey, missed reducing mortals to nothing but the sounds of their heartbeats so he doesn’t go mad with guilt, as some vampires with consciences do if they dwell too long on what they must do to survive. He tracks a man to his apartment and leaps on him as he’s putting his code into his door; the apartment inside is expensive, and Hongbin glamours the man to let him inside before he drags him over to the sofa to drink from him, relishing every second of it. The blood is just ordinary human blood, nothing special—in fact, given the fact that this man is a smoker, it tastes slightly dirty—and while it certainly tastes nowhere near as good as Taekwoon’s did, it’s soothing because it is familiar. Given Hongbin’s circumstances, he must find solace in the familiar whenever he can.

He leaves the human passed out on snoring on his sofa, but not before he helps himself to an expensive bottle of wine from his fridge, shoving it in his backpack without the slightest hint of guilt. When he gets home he’s going to down the whole thing and pass out—on the fifteen million sofa, because why the fuck not—and then he’s going to sleep through the day and resume being a vampire like he should.

He feeds again, and then once more, overindulging for the sake of it. When he makes his way home the night is still young but he’s maybe a bit blood-drunk, swaying a little on his feet and opening the door loud enough to startle Taekwoon awake from where he was dozing on the new sofa, which he’s set up as a bed. It’s only now that Hongbin’s irritation comes back to him, but it’s filtered through the blood in his system, so he just grimaces at Taekwoon instead of ripping his throat out.

“Hongbin?” Taekwoon says, and he looks very small in the middle of the sofa bed, and it’s not until Hongbin steps closer that he realises that Taekwoon is shirtless. “Are you okay?”

 _Fuck it,_ Hongbin decides, and stretches his grimace into what he hopes passes for a smile. _Fuck it all to Hell._ “Let’s go to the beach,” he says, and extends his fangs.

//

Hongbin speeds the entire way there, at first because he’s still blood-drunk and forgets that Taekwoon is both mortal and terrified of cars, and then, once he sobers up, because he can sense dawn’s approach and wants to get there in time. It takes two hours, and Taekwoon only relaxes in the last ten minutes, when Hongbin has to slow down as he’s entering the town.

It’s a different beach to the one they were at last time, and for this he’s thankful. That beach was long and wide, but this is little more than a small strip of sand leading to the sea. It still smells like the ocean, though, and the sand is still warm when they get out of the car and take off their shoes, and even though Hongbin should be feeling animosity, or maybe fear, he’s strangely empty as he walks into the water and lets it wash against his calves.

“That was the last time I was in Heaven,” Taekwoon says, apropos of nothing, and Hongbin turns to look at him, surprised.

“When Jaehwan cut your arm off?”

“Yes.”

Hongbin doesn’t really know what to say. It was a horrible time, that short span of days. Little did they know the storm that was coming when they summoned Taekwoon to their circle on the beach. They couldn’t see the chain of events that would unfold from there, and although Hongbin knows hindsight is 20/20, he still wishes he could warn his past self from making the same mistakes he has. Sometimes—like now, with Taekwoon leaning into him—they don’t feel like mistakes, but then all he has to do is think about everything he’s lost and he’s unsure again.

“What did it feel like?” When Taekwoon turns to him, incredulous, he realises and backpedals. “Not the arm. I mean, being summoned.”

“Ah. That.” Taekwoon looks back out at the sea and smiles, although it’s almost wistful. “It hurts. I suppose it’s not unlike what it feels like to have your energy fed on.” Here he taps on Hongbin’s sternum, gently. “A pull right here, behind your breastbone. A wave of power that grows and grows until you are swept up in it. You try to resist but cannot. It is very unnerving. Angels are not used to being unable to resist something. We do not like not being in control.”

He seems to realise he’s said too much, because he shuts his mouth with a snap and looks away, and Hongbin is left a little confused. “You’re still using present tense,” he murmurs, glancing at the lightening sky.

“I know.” Taekwoon shrugs. “I can only hope I will grow out of it. Being mortal still feels like a horrible nightmare that I cannot wake from.”

“I—”

Taekwoon turns to him, something ancient in his eyes, and he shakes his head. “Sometimes it feels like a dream, too,” he replies, and takes Hongbin’s hand, laces their fingers together, and squeezes.

Hongbin’s lost for words, and he doesn’t think he has the right ones for the indecipherable feeling in his veins, anyway, so he just stays silent. The sun rises slowly and then all at once; one moment they are in darkness and the next they are bathed in heat, water lapping at their feet and the weight of their words between them. Hongbin tilts his head back as the sun hits it, and for a few moments is able to enjoy the feeling of warmth, of happiness in its purest form, before it starts to sting.

“Come on,” Taekwoon murmurs, and gives Hongbin’s hand a tug. “Let’s go.”

Hongbin is loath to move. How can he give up that which he has been longing for for so long—how can he? He stays rooted to the spot as the pain grows, and Taekwoon’s tugging turns into yanking, not realising until now how fucking easy it would be to die like this. He gets it. He understands why vampires meet the sun. Immortality is nothing compared to this.

But not yet.

He acquiesces and lets Taekwoon drag him back to the car, but his hands are fluttering nervously over Hongbin, and he knows he must be burnt pretty badly. “Are you alright? It looks… How are we going to get home?”

“We’re not,” Hongbin sighs, and pops the boot of the car, still hesitating to get inside. “I’ll sleep in here. We’ll drive back after sunset. You can go and enjoy the beach.” When Taekwoon doesn’t move, eyebrows knitted together with worry, Hongbin gives him a gentle push back towards the water. “Go. I’ll be fine.”

The burning reaches fever pitch and Taekwoon’s mouth wobbles, almost like he’s about to start crying, so Hongbin slips inside the boot and slams the lid with more force than necessary just so he doesn’t have to see it.

//

He sleeps, he doesn’t dream, and he wakes to Taekwoon yelling his name, shaking him vigorously. “Hongbin! Hongbin, wake up, _please_.”

“What?” he asks, struggling upright, already on the lookout for the threat. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

But Taekwoon just shakes his head and pulls Hongbin in for a hug, his arms tight. He’s still in the boot of the car, Hongbin realises, although he can see the moon rising out of the sea over Taekwoon’s shoulder. He slept the day away with no memory of it, just like how he used to do, and with a sinking feeling in his heart he realises that no trace of Taekwoon’s blood in him remains. It is over.

“I thought you were dead,” Taekwoon’s saying, his face mushed into the side of Hongbin’s neck. “I opened the boot and—and you weren’t breathing. You weren’t even moving. You were so cold…”

“That’s how vampires sleep,” Hongbin murmurs, putting both hands on Taekwoon’s shoulders to push him away gently, if only because his breath on Hongbin’s neck is making his fangs ache. He has healed from the damage he took from the sun earlier, which means he’ll need to feed sooner than expected, and Taekwoon’s presence is not helping. “I’m just an ordinary vampire now, Taekwoon. No angel blood left.”

At this, Taekwoon smiles, but it’s strained. “You’re not ordinary to me,” he whispers, and Hongbin gets that feeling again, that same one he’d felt when they’d hugged in the car park, the one he can’t understand and doesn’t want to try deciphering.

Instead he stands up and stretches, determined to banish the awkwardness even if it’s only on his end. “Did you enjoy the beach? What did you do?” It’s only when he says this that he realises Taekwoon is sunburnt, and leans forward to touch his nose. “Oh, Taekwoon, you’re burnt.”

“I didn’t realise mortals burn in the sun too,” Taekwoon says, and Hongbin can tell it’s his attempt at a joke. “I fell asleep in the sun and when I woke up I was all red and stiff. I did try ice cream, though.”

“How was it?” Hongbin replies, slamming the boot lid behind him and making his way around to the driver’s side of the car.

Taekwoon shrugs as he slips into the passenger’s seat and does up his seatbelt. “It was fine. It would have been better with company.” He shoots a glance at Hongbin, intended to be subtle but in reality anything but. “I do not like being alone.”

“You were alone for thousands of years.”

“No, I wasn’t,” Taekwoon replies instantly. “I was connected to the other angels. I was connected to Heaven. I could feel them with me always. Being mortal and being alone is entirely different.”

Once again Hongbin finds himself wishing he could read mortal colours. But all he can see with his other sense is the faintest hint of pink; he can sense mortal souls rather than see them, and he certainly can’t read them well enough to decipher what Taekwoon is feeling. At least they’re both in the dark. It’s a small comfort, because Taekwoon’s drawn his legs up to hug them, and he’s glowering straight ahead at the blackness of the highway.

“How so?”

“I feel nothing.” Taekwoon’s voice sounds it, too; he’s devoid of emotion and Hongbin clenches his hands on the wheel in frustration. “All I can feel is my own inadequacy. My body is so useless. I can’t see or hear or taste or… I am perfectly aware of my own mortality at all times. I can feel my life ticking away with every beat of my heart. That is the worst part, I think.”

“Which part?” Hongbin asks, dreading the answer, helpless to stay silent.

“The… the slow sap of life. If I had died that night the way I intended to, that would have been it. I would have died. But this is worse. My life just… bleeding away.”

Hongbin is silent for a while. He doesn’t really know what to say. His mortal days are shrouded in fog in his mind—Wonshik says that’s common, and not to worry about it, so Hongbin tries not to—and he does not have a heartbeat to be concerned with.

“I think you should try seeing it differently,” he starts, aware he sounds like a self-help book but unable to phrase it any other way. “This is a second chance. You get some more years on Earth to do something worthwhile. Mortals seem to manage with the time they have.”

“Mortals are not aware of everything they are missing out on,” Taekwoon breathes, so quietly Hongbin can barely hear him over the sounds of the miles disappearing beneath the wheels.

“That’s true. But… I really think you can make something of this life. Even if it’s not what you would have chosen.” They fall into silence for a while, Hongbin chewing on the inside of his cheek as he mulls over his words. “I’m sorry that I took that choice away from you, that night.” More silence. “I just couldn’t… I couldn’t let you die. Not for me.”

“Dying for you would have been the best way to die,” Taekwoon says, and then turns away from Hongbin, a deliberate full stop on a sentence that has Hongbin staring straight ahead through the windshield at nothing, his chest tight.

//

Taekwoon wakes up when Hongbin pulls into the carpark and ratchets up the handbrake, but he doesn’t say anything until they’re in the apartment, just standing there. There’s an awkward distance between them, burning with something, and Hongbin does not want to attempt to cross the breach. Instead he just waits. Seeing the fifteen million sofa again has reignited his irritation, even as he tries to push it away.

“Will you sleep?” Taekwoon murmurs, making his way over to the chest of drawers and pulling open what Hongbin now recognises as his pyjama drawer. “I am quite tired.”

Hongbin shakes his head, watching as Taekwoon pulls out an oversized tshirt and a pair of cotton sleep shorts from the drawer. “No. I need to feed again.”

Taekwoon looks up at that, surprised. “Already?”

He could probably get away with not feeding. He _could_. The hunger isn’t overwhelming at all, it’s just a pulse at the back of his mind, but the fact that he’s so tuned into Taekwoon’s heartbeat—and the fact that they’re practically living on top of each other—is not helping. He’s going to have to keep himself ridiculously full just so he can hear Taekwoon’s very mortal heartbeat and not be bothered by it, which is annoying. But it’s what must be done.

“Yeah. Healing from the burns took the edge off what I had. I have to go top up.” He says this last part with a grin, trying to make a joke out of it, but Taekwoon doesn’t smile.

Instead he does something Hongbin isn’t expecting at all. He pulls off his shirt, exposing those beautiful tattoos, and walks over to Hongbin very deliberately, and then, before Hongbin can react, takes his hand and puts it on his neck over his pulse point. “You can feed from me,” he says, perfectly even, perfectly measured. His eyes do not betray whatever it is he is thinking. “I want you to.”

“Taekwoon,” Hongbin grunts, and sees Taekwoon’s eyes widen slightly when his fangs descend. “Don’t.”

“Why not?”

“It’s _different_ —”

“Different how?”

Taekwoon’s not throwing a tantrum, or getting hysterical. He’s still perfectly in control, his calmness only belied by the way his heart has started to race under Hongbin’s fingertips. He can’t take his hand away. He can’t. “It feels nice, for you. As a human. You can get addicted to that feeling.”

“So?”

Hongbin reaches inside himself for a pocket of self-control he didn’t even know he possessed and pulls his hand away. Taekwoon doesn’t stop him. “So I’m not doing it,” he whispers, voice hoarse. “Please don’t ask again.”

He doesn’t wait to hear Taekwoon’s reply. He just flees, running from the thick, weighty atmosphere of _something_ in that room, running from it and everything it represents.

//

He feeds nearly to the point of blood-drunkenness again and staggers home before sunrise. Taekwoon wakes the moment the door opens and sleepily rolls over, exposing his back and its scars but also clearly inviting Hongbin to slip into bed next to him.

Hongbin is tempted.

Instead, though, he sets about light-proofing the room as best he can, with the sheets of thick black tarpaulin he’d picked up from the twenty-four hour supermarket—in the camping section, of all places—and duct tape. It’s hard work, especially as he’s doing it alone, but Taekwoon doesn’t offer to help, and Hongbin doesn’t ask. When it’s done he stands back and casts his eye over the newly-tarped window and hole in the wall, from where he’d punched through it. It’ll probably do. He doesn’t much care if he burns, really.

Once he’s done he pulls out the other thing he’d bought from the supermarket and throws it at Taekwoon. It hits his back and bounces onto the sofa bed next to him, and he hisses with pain and rolls over, grabbing the object and holding it up to see. “Aloe vera gel? What’s this?”

“Put it on your sunburn,” Hongbin grunts. “It should help.”

“Oh. Thank you.” Taekwoon sits up and uncaps the lid, and Hongbin has to look away from him, if only because the way he’s shirtless exposes his tattoos, beautiful and unnerving. “Are you coming to bed?”

It makes Hongbin’s skin crawl, the way he says that so nonchalantly, because he can’t count the number of times Sanghyuk’s said that exact phrase over the years, and a fresh thread of guilt tugs at him painfully.

“No,” he replies curtly, and marches past the new sofa to the old one, shoved carelessly in a corner because that’s the only place it fits. Hongbin will have to throw it out at some point—they barely have room to walk around with all the shit cluttering up the apartment—but right now it serves a purpose. He curls up on it, facing away from Taekwoon, and closes his eyes even though he knows he won’t be able to sleep until dawn.

“Alright,” Taekwoon whispers to his back, but he sounds sadder than Hongbin had expected.

//

It’s another few days before they’re back to normal, or at least what passes for normal between them. Taekwoon’s ineptitude continues, and Hongbin continues to try and not let it frustrate him. It’s not like Taekwoon is stupid—far from it. But he cannot seem to get the hang of anything mortal, and he doesn’t seem to be trying very hard, so perhaps it’s with only the tiniest of spite in his heart that Hongbin takes them on the bus one evening.

“Where are we going?” Taekwoon asks, flushed and happy even though Hongbin had to remind him to tap on his card when they got on the bus.

“You’ll see.”

But Taekwoon elbows him. “Hongbin,” he whines, and when he’s pouting he looks so cute—and so absolutely unlike the angel he used to be—that Hongbin finds it hard to refuse him anything. “Tell me where we’re going!”

“Somewhere,” Hongbin replies mysteriously, but can’t even explain further because Taekwoon’s hands wiggle their way to his waist and he squeezes, making Hongbin jump so high he nearly hits his head on the air conditioning vent. “Hey—Taekwoon—don’t—”

But Taekwoon has no mercy. “Tell me!”

“This is our stop,” Hongbin gasps, and leans forward to press the button. “Come on. You’ll find out soon enough.”

He’s glad he has that excuse to slide out from underneath Taekwoon’s hands, not least because the touch unnerves him somehow. He’s less glad when it means he has to remind Taekwoon to tap off, too, which he pretends to not know how to do even though he did it not less than ten minutes before. Hongbin still hasn’t gotten to the bottom of why Taekwoon’s acting like this, but he’s determined to at some point. He knows how to do half the things Hongbin is teaching him. He just pretends not to, for some reason completely beyond Hongbin’s understanding.

“This is where we’re going,” he announces, pointing at the building directly in front of the bus stop. “Come on.”

Taekwoon falls silent, as Hongbin had expected him to, but he doesn’t resist as Hongbin takes his hand to tug him closer. He really has no clue if this is a good or bad idea, but Taekwoon’s words from the car on the way back from the beach have been echoing around his head since he spoke them, and he figures it’s worth a try more than anything else.

“A church,” Taekwoon murmurs, and stops on the threshold. He looks up at the facade of the building, his face perfectly expressionless, and Hongbin’s heart sinks. “You have brought me to a church.”

“I thought it might be nice. Maybe you can start finding the things you’ve lost again.”

Taekwoon fixes his gaze on Hongbin, steely and cold, and Hongbin feels about two feet tall. “Mortals do not have a connection to Heaven like angels do.”

“No, but they seem to do all right with what they do have.” Hongbin shrugs. “We don’t have to go in. It was just an idea.”

But Taekwoon doesn’t reply, just marches inside, and Hongbin closes his eyes for a moment to hope that he’s made the right decision. He didn’t even know what denomination church to bring Taekwoon to, doesn’t know which is the most correct, so he’d closed his eyes and pointed at the screen of his laptop and had ended up with his finger on a large-ish Catholic church with night services not too far away from them. If it’s wrong he at least has the defence that he had no idea, which is true. Church is not a familiar setting for him.

In fact, he realises as he steps inside and follows Taekwoon down the centre aisle, he realises that this is the first time he’s been in a church since—well, since the night he died. The thought makes him go slightly cold all over, and he hurries a bit closer to Taekwoon, who is looking up at the ceiling. When Hongbin looks up too he can see it’s painted with what looks to be frescos of various biblical scenes, the most central being one of Jesus in heaven with hosts of angels all around him and his disciples down on Earth gazing upwards. The angels aren’t like the ones Hongbin knows; they’re small and chubby, with tiny white wings.

“Cherubim,” Taekwoon murmurs, pointing. “One step below seraphim on the… ladder, I suppose you could call it.”

“The ladder of angels,” Hongbin replies, and Taekwoon snorts.

“Well. Yes. It does sound quite ridiculous. But there is a strict hierarchy. Seraphs at the top, followed by cherubs, thrones, dominions, principalities, powers, virtues, archangels, and angels.”

It’s Hongbin’s turn to snort. “Bullshit. Those don’t even sound like names.”

“Would I lie to you about this?” Taekwoon replies, and when he looks at Hongbin he’s smiling—he’s actually _smiling_ —the biggest smile Hongbin has seen him smile in a long time.

They are interrupted by a nosy elderly mortal woman, the oldest mortal Hongbin has ever been close to, and before they know it she’s dragging them over to a pew and settling them in it, chattering a constant stream of words into their ears that leave them both slightly overwhelmed. She’s talking about _how good it is to see two young men around here_ and how she _hopes they’ll like the sermon, the Father is very nice,_ and how they should _stick around after the service to meet him._ They can barely keep straight faces, because Taekwoon is older than this woman can comprehend and even Hongbin is ancient compared to her, but somehow they manage until Mass begins.

Hongbin tunes out the prayers. It’s nothing he hasn’t read before, and it’s certainly nothing he’s interested in. Taekwoon, on the other hand, is rapt, listening like it’s the first time he’s heard these words—and maybe it is. When the priest starts reading from the Bible, though, he turns to Hongbin and smacks him on the knee like this is all his fault. “This translation is horrendous,” he whispers, and sinks lower in the pew. “I cannot believe what I am hearing.”

“Let me guess,” Hongbin replies dryly. “You wrote the Bible yourself.”

Taekwoon sniffs disdainfully. “Of course not. I knew angels that were there when parts of it were written, but I was busy at the time.”

“Oh, of _course_ you were,” Hongbin murmurs sarcastically, which gets him another slap on the knee from Taekwoon.

There’s a lot of standing and sitting, and chanting along to prayers that Hongbin has no idea about—he just lip syncs and hopes no one is looking too closely—so he spends the time watching Taekwoon. He knows every word to every single prayer, and says them so fervently that it’s like he has become someone else. There’s not a light behind his eyes, not exactly, but he seems to be thrumming with _something_ , some feeling under his skin that makes him look at home here. Even if Hongbin doesn’t exactly believe in God—or, he thinks, at least doesn’t believe that God can do anything for him—it’s wondrous to see. Taekwoon looks alive, and when he turns to Hongbin and their eyes meet, he takes Hongbin’s breath away.

“Are you going to take communion?” Hongbin whispers, and elbows Taekwoon gently. “Go on. Go eat Jesus. You know you want to.”

Taekwoon shoots him a withering look out of the corner of his eye, leaving Hongbin trying to hold in his laughter even though he knows he really shouldn’t be laughing at all. But Taekwoon doesn’t move from his seat until the priest dismisses them, and then he’s up like a shot, making a dash for the doors before Hongbin can even process what’s happened.

“What happened?” he asks, finding Taekwoon sitting on the steps outside. “Are you okay?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know.” Taekwoon puts his head in his hands, the epitome of melancholy, and Hongbin takes pity on him and sits next to him, leaning his head on Taekwoon’s shoulder.

“What is it?”

Taekwoon takes a long time to get his words together, by which time mortals have started filtering out of the church, giving them strange looks which Hongbin rebuts with glares that clearly say _fuck off_. “It was too much,” he whispers miserably. “It was nice at first but… It just feels strange. To be in a place that holy and to not be able to feel anything. I used to be able to… I used to have a connection to holy things. It’s gone now. I could almost feel it inside but… not quite. Not the same.”

Hongbin’s heart sinks. He thought the worst thing that could happen tonight was Taekwoon complaining about how the decor was wrong, or how prayers work differently in Heaven, but this was something he stupidly did not expect. He thought Taekwoon being in a place of worship would be nice; he didn’t consider it would underscore all the ways Taekwoon has changed and how he’s lost something that he has no hope of getting back, no matter how many platitudes Hongbin spouts.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, and takes Taekwoon’s hand, squeezing gently to keep him tethered here. “I didn’t think of that. I should’ve.”

“It’s fine. You had no way of knowing.” Hongbin’s about to argue, but Taekwoon silences him by putting one arm around him and pulling him closer. “I know that connection has been severed for good. I have yet to accept it, but I will with time.”

“Good,” Hongbin murmurs absentmindedly, his mind focused on how nice it feels tucked underneath Taekwoon’s arm like this. Pressed up against his side, Hongbin can feel his heartbeat, but it doesn’t make him hungry. It’s just comforting, and for a long moment time seems to slow and the world disappears; it’s just him and Taekwoon and no one else, and once upon a time that thought would be frightening but now it’s something that makes him happy, and a slow shiver runs down his spine.

“Let’s leave before that old human finds us,” Taekwoon whispers, giving Hongbin one last squeeze before getting up.

“You shouldn’t talk so belligerently about humans, considering you’re one of them now.”

Taekwoon gives Hongbin the best eye roll he’s seen in decades—and considering he is (was?) friends with Hakyeon, he’s seen a lot of good ones—and huffs, but he’s not being serious. “Yes, and whose fault is that?”

“Okay, okay. Keep being a martyr. It’s what you’re used to, after all,” Hongbin says, which earns him a shove from Taekwoon. “Ow! Resorting to your violent tendencies, I see—”

“Aren’t you glad I don’t have my sword anymore?” Taekwoon starts slashing an imaginary sword through the air, and he’s trying, he’s trying so hard to be happy and exuberant even though Hongbin can tell he’s still hurting that a little piece of Hongbin’s heart breaks for him.

So Hongbin plays along, because if that’s what Taekwoon wants, that’s what he will do. “Even if you did, you couldn’t catch me,” he sing-songs, and then takes off down the street at a run.

“Not fair!” Taekwoon yells, sprinting to catch up, but he’s helplessly slow and they both know it and before long he starts wheeze-laughing. “Hongbin!” he calls, drawing out the syllables of his name. “Don’t leave me!”

“I won’t,” Hongbin promises, and as the lie wraps around them both Taekwoon looks up at him, laughing underneath the streetlights, and Hongbin knows he feels it too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> don't thank me for the tmoney recharging tutorial i give it free of charge <3
> 
> also 15 million won is about 15 thousand us dollars (yes, $15,000), and yes you can buy 15 million won sofas on gmarket, yes i looked, yes i, too, don't know why


	4. Chapter 4

“For God’s sake,” Taekwoon huffs one night a few days later, as Hongbin yet again curls up on the old sofa that he has yet to throw away. “Are you going to sleep there forever?”

Hongbin just stares at him. How the hell can he explain that sharing a bed is weird? He can’t, not without making it weird and therefore making _Taekwoon_ weird, so he just shrugs. “I like this sofa,” he says, but it sounds weak, especially since his vow to only sleep there has gotten old already, given he can’t stretch out properly and his anger has faded from Taekwoon’s online shopping misadventure. “It’s nice.”

“But I bought this for you,” Taekwoon says with a pout, and Hongbin looks away so he doesn’t have to see it. “And you are not even using it. Perhaps we should swap? I can take the other—”

The thought of Taekwoon curling up on this sofa just so Hongbin can sleep in a bed makes his chest weirdly tight, and he shakes his head vehemently. “No,” he murmurs, because his mind immediately goes to that night they shared the blanket pile and how he’d woken to Taekwoon twined around him like a vine. “And besides, since I paid for it technically I bought it. So.”

“So, come on,” Taekwoon replies, and pulls the blankets aside. “Is your back not hurting from the sofa?”

Hongbin grits his teeth and closes his eyes for a moment before giving in with a sigh. He’s sure that if he doesn’t come of his own volition Taekwoon will do something drastic, like trying to pick him up and pull him into bed, and while the thought of that is amusing it’s also alarming. He gets up from the sofa and collapses face-first onto the bed, relishing the opportunity to stretch out. Dawn is so close that he barely even notices Taekwoon pulling the blankets over him, tucking him in.

“Sleep well,” Taekwoon whispers as the sun rises.

//

Hongbin’s eyes snap open at sunset, and it takes him a few seconds before he remembers that he’s not curled up on the sofa and that the heavy weight on his chest is Taekwoon, holding him close in sleep. He knew they’d end up like this. He just knew, which is partly why he was so reluctant to sleep here. Another reason is that the last person he shared a bed with was Sanghyuk, and that wound is still so raw he’s trying not to think of it as much as he can, even though every day is a struggle. He can’t even think of how many times he’s seen something interesting and reached for his phone to tell Sanghyuk about it before remembering, or without thinking has reached for the bond with Wonshik before being reminded of just how badly he has fucked up.

Except in moments like this—even though it’s traitorous of him to even think—it doesn’t exactly feel like he’s fucked up. Taekwoon is warm, and his head on Hongbin’s chest is nice, and when Hongbin looks down at him he thinks—maybe. Maybe the next however-many-years of this wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe they could somehow carve out a nice life together, the angel who gave up everything he knew for the vampire, and the vampire who took a risk.

 _Former_ angel, Hongbin reminds himself as he tunes into Taekwoon’s heartbeat automatically. It’s deliciously slow in sleep, almost hypnotisingly so, and when Taekwoon rolls over and exposes his neck inadvertently Hongbin’s fangs descend of their own accord and he trembles with want. He tells himself it’s just his body’s left over delusion—his instincts haven’t realised Taekwoon is no longer an angel and still wants to drink his blood—but if he’s honest with himself he can’t separate the vampire hunger from the urge to drink from Taekwoon _specifically_ , and that frightens him terribly.

Taekwoon wakes up when he’s banging around the kitchen, making coffee in a vain hope it will help but more for something to do so he’s not concentrating on Taekwoon’s heart. “Good morning,” he slurs, rubbing his eyes. “Or evening, as it were. What are you making?”

“Coffee,” Hongbin replies curtly.

“May I have some? Do you have any plans for today?”

“Yes and yes,” Hongbin says, pulling an extra mug out of the cupboard—since when did they have so much _stuff?_ —and putting it down on the bench with a bit more force than necessary. “I need to feed at some point.” Taekwoon opens his mouth, but Hongbin points a spoon at him, shutting him up. “Don’t start. I’m not feeding from you so don’t ask.”

“I wasn’t going to,” Taekwoon replies, sweetly like butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth—but it’s a ruse and they both know it.

Their fingers brush when Hongbin hands Taekwoon his coffee, and he jumps away like he’s been burnt.

//

It happens when Hongbin is on his laptop translating a file, his mind buried so deep in Japanese grammar that he doesn’t register Taekwoon’s hiss until the clatter of something hitting the ground startles him. He doesn’t even turn, figuring Taekwoon is just being clumsy again, and then—

The smell hits him.

He’s up and on his feet in a flash. Taekwoon is standing in the kitchen over a chopping board which is now splattered with blood, the carrots ruined. There’s a deep wound in his hand, a knife on the floor at his feet, and when he looks at Hongbin he shrugs nonchalantly. “Oh. Look what happened.”

“Taekwoon, you utter fucking _bastard_ ,” Hongbin hisses, rearing back—but it’s too late. His fangs are already out and the urge to feed is already overwhelmingly present and all he can hear is the _thump-thump_ of Taekwoon’s heart, all he’s been hearing for weeks now, all he knows. “You did that on purpose.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Taekwoon replies, voice perfectly even.

“ _Don’t_ lie to me,” Hongbin roars, taking a step closer to jab Taekwoon in the chest, his eyes flaring red. It’s satisfying as all hell when Taekwoon shrinks back, even though it makes him feel the tiniest bit guilty. “Don’t try and manipulate me like this.”

Taekwoon’s eyes narrow and his face twists, a mirror of how he used to be. “I just find it interesting how you were more than happy to drink from me when I was an angel but now you refuse to. Is my human blood not good enough for you? Is that it? Do you refuse to lower yourself to my level—”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Taekwoon!” Hongbin yells, throwing his hands in the air. “I’ve drunk from humans for a hundred fucking years! That’s not the problem. Don’t try and make yourself a victim.”

“Then what _is_ the problem?” Taekwoon roars right back, shoving his hand in Hongbin’s face and forcing him backwards until his back hits the fridge and he’s pinned, nowhere else to go. “Because I am not quite understanding. You need blood. I have blood. It is an arrangement that worked for us before. Why not now?”

 _Because this will change everything,_ Hongbin wants to say. _Because you’re a human now._ But he lacks the words to explain properly, and Taekwoon’s hand is awfully close, and his resolve is quickly wavering. He isn’t even that thirsty; it’s just that his body is so tuned into Taekwoon that having this in front of him, an invitation, is so hard to resist. Impossibly hard. And he was always bad at resisting, anyway. Never could.

“Taekwoon,” he pleads, trying one last time. “Please let me go. You don’t know what you’re doing.”

“Just once,” Taekwoon replies, and he licks his lips. “Please do it just once so I know.”

An invitation. Taekwoon’s practically begging, and Hongbin draws his lips back, aching to bite. He knows he shouldn’t. He knows all the reasons why he shouldn’t inside and out, starting and ending with _feeding from a human is different_ , but all those reasons seem very hard to find right now when Taekwoon’s hand is dripping blood right in front of his nose. There’s a moment where he thinks he might not do it, he might actually have the strength to leave, but then Taekwoon licks his lips and swallows and Hongbin’s self-control vanishes.

He takes Taekwoon’s hand and licks at it, tongue flat against the wound, and Taekwoon’s eyes widen and Hongbin hears his heart actually skip a beat. He doesn’t stop there, though, even though the taste of Taekwoon’s blood explodes on his tongue, human and yet unlike anything he has ever tasted before. He wants more and he doesn’t hesitate to get it, trailing his lips down Taekwoon’s wrist, hovering above his pulse for only a second before biting down.

Taekwoon cries out, sagging forward, and Hongbin catches him and pulls him close as he clamps down around the wound, drinking and drinking like he’s dying. Taekwoon’s blood is definitely human, but there’s something in the bass note of it; it’s like a tiny hint of his old magic is coming through, without any of the potency or allure but there nonetheless. It’s strange but also reassuring, warm, and Hongbin closes his eyes as he drinks. They’ve done this before, of course. But not like this. Not standing in the apartment, Taekwoon clinging onto Hongbin’s hips, their entire bodies flush. Not Taekwoon gasping, his eyelids fluttering shut as he sways. Not the way he pulls himself closer, burying his head in Hongbin’s neck. It’s too much all at once, and yet Taekwoon—or Taekwoon’s blood, Hongbin can’t tell—is so hypnotising that Hongbin cannot bring himself to pull away; not until, at least, he realises Taekwoon is rocking his hips against Hongbin’s, and he jerks back violently.

They’re both panting. Taekwoon is gasping for air like he’s drowning, one hand clutched to his chest, and he’s looking at Hongbin with a dazed expression that Hongbin recognises all too well, and he hates himself, he _hates_ himself. “Do you understand now?” he chokes out, trembling all over. “Do you get it?”

He doesn’t even give Taekwoon the chance to reply, though, before he shoulders past him and bursts free of the apartment, running so he doesn’t have to think about what he has just done.

//

A memory returns to him unbidden as he races through the darkness.

“ _And this blood lust… How hard is it to control? How hard is it for you to be around someone that is bleeding?”_

_He sounds so brave, but he’s anything but—his heart is racing so hard he can feel it pounding in his ears, in his mouth, and so he doesn’t hesitate when he draws his pocket knife over his palm. The cut is deeper than he’d wanted it to be and he stiffens with the pain, sure that Wonshik is about to leap for him and tear his throat out. He still can’t wrap his head around that—that Wonshik isn’t human, let alone a blood-drinking monster._

_“I can control myself,” Wonshik says, but when he speaks Hongbin can see his fangs have come out and he has to stop himself from getting up and running away._

_“And why can’t you go out in the sunlight?”_

_“I’ll burn. Look, can I bandage that for you? I can tell it’s hurting.”_

_Hongbin closes his fist, but the pain rips through him and he only just manages to stifle his whimper. It’s strange, being afraid of Wonshik, because for the past six months Hongbin has wanted to_ be _Wonshik. He knew, of course, that Wonshik was something different; his steely-grey colours confirmed that much. But he never suspected this. How could he have?_

_“What’s an incubus?” he asks to distract himself, or maybe in a vain hope to distract Wonshik._

_It doesn’t work, though. Wonshik gets off the floor and goes to the kitchen, pulling out—of all things—a small basket of medical supplies from one of the cupboards. He blows dust off it as he walks back to the table, clearly moving deliberately slowly so he doesn’t alarm Hongbin even more. Not that that matters. Hongbin is pretty sure he can’t be more alarmed than how he was last night, pinned to the wall of the alley while death rained all around him, while Wonshik moved faster than a human had any right to._

_“An incubus is another type of false immortal that also feeds on life energy. Just as I get that energy through blood, an incubus gets that energy through… sex,” Wonshik says, kneeling beside Hongbin and reaching for his hand._

_“Oh,” Hongbin murmurs, because he didn’t expect that, either—although upon giving it a moment’s reflection, it makes sense. He’s not really surprised. It suits Hakyeon._

_He hisses in pain when Wonshik presses a wad of cotton to the wound on his palm and begins winding a bandage around his hand carefully, and nearly pulls away. But Wonshik doesn’t bite him. He doesn’t even look tempted. He does all this mechanically, like he’s bored, and maybe it’s this that gives Hongbin the confidence to say, “You can drink from me... if you want,” even though he’s not sure he really means it._

_But Wonshik doesn’t bite him, like he’d expected. Instead he meets Hongbin’s eyes as he brings Hongbin’s wrist to his lips and then, very deliberately, licks a line up Hongbin’s wrist, catching the blood that was running down it. Hongbin hisses again, this time not from pain but from the spike of arousal that wedges its way between his ribs; he isn’t even particularly attracted to Wonshik, but right now he wants to kiss him. He’s afraid and turned on and he doesn’t like either of those things, and he’s sure he sounds hoarse when Wonshik pulls back and he finds his voice enough to ask, “What do I taste like?”_

_“Funnily enough, you do taste sort of different,” Wonshik replies after moving away, before licking at the blood on his hands. The sight of that sends another pang of arousal straight through Hongbin, his eyes tracing Wonshik’s tongue, his brain fogged with lust. What the hell? “Definitely human, but with something… more. It’s… earthy. Heavy.”_

When Hongbin snaps back to the present he’s bent over double on the footpath, gasping for air, great swallows of it. That memory, like all of his human ones, is fuzzy and blurry around the edges, but he still remembers how even just Wonshik licking at his wrist had turned him on—and then later at the river, when Wonshik had actually bitten him, he’d thought he’d actually go mad with lust. But more importantly than that is the fact that he had done the exact same thing to Wonshik as Taekwoon did to him. Did he unearth that in Hongbin’s memories? Did he see that in Hongbin’s head, and was inspired? Or was it pure coincidence?

Either way he doesn’t like it. He doesn’t like how his skin is crawling all over, both at his lovely trip down memory lane and at the way Taekwoon had looked at him in the kitchen, chest heaving. He’d looked desperate. He’d looked more human, more laced with desire, than Hongbin has ever seen him before, and that’s _exactly_ what he’s been avoiding, although he doesn’t really know why. Taekwoon is human now. It’s natural that he has sexual desire, something he obviously did not have when he was an angel. But the thought of that makes Hongbin’s face hot, and he starts walking blindly just so he does not have to think about it.

//

He does not return home. He sleeps in the dirt that day, something he hasn’t done for decades, and when he claws his way free the next night he remembers why. His hair is utterly ruined, as are his clothes, and he keeps finding dirt in his mouth and has to keep spitting it out as he walks home. For a long while he considers not returning home at all, but he can’t go through with it. The thought of Taekwoon waiting for him, as Hongbin knows he will be, tugs at his heart enough that he soon finds himself hovering in front of the apartment that he has started to recognise as home. He doesn’t even know why he’s hesitating, only that he is; he knows something will have changed between him and Taekwoon, and he doesn’t really want to find out what.

In the end he keys in the code and only gets as far as one step inside before Taekwoon falls upon him with a cry. “Hongbin!” he exclaims, and hugs Hongbin tight, burying his head in the crook of Hongbin’s neck. “I was so worried… I thought you had…”

“Oh, Jesus,” Hongbin murmurs, and guides them as one unit to the sofa bed. When he sits, Taekwoon crawls into his lap, thighs bracketing Hongbin’s hips, and clings to him. “You thought I’d gotten caught in the sun? Oh, Taekwoon, I’m so sorry.”

“I went looking for you, but I didn’t know where you went,” Taekwoon says, and with dawning horror Hongbin realises he’s crying. “I was so scared—”

“Hey, hey,” Hongbin murmurs, detaching Taekwoon from his shoulder to pull him back, put them face to face. He wipes at Taekwoon’s tears and gives him a smile. “I promised I wouldn’t leave you, and I won’t,” he lies. _At least not yet._ “Sorry to get all dramatic on you.”

“I’m sorry I made you bite me when you didn’t want to,” Taekwoon replies miserably, and loops his arms around Hongbin’s neck. He doesn’t seem to notice, or care, how stiff Hongbin’s gotten, how frozen he is. “I should have… respected your decision. I will not ask again.” He looks away, worrying his lower lip between his teeth. “Please do not run like that again. It frightened me.”

Hongbin deserves every part of the guilt he feels, so he just pulls Taekwoon in for another hug so he doesn’t have to look at his tear-stricken face. He has long since accepted the fact that Taekwoon needs him, but he doesn’t quite want to admit to himself that he needs Taekwoon, too, although in what capacity he’s not sure. For a while they just sit there in silence. Taekwoon’s weight is comforting, the way his hands are stroking up Hongbin’s back soothing, and he closes his eyes as they breathe together. It would be nice, he realises, to just exist like this for the rest of eternity—but of course they cannot. Taekwoon is mortal, he will die one day, and although Hongbin has known this for a while he feels like this is the first time it’s properly setting in, and despite himself he clings a little tighter.

//

They sleep curled up in the bed together that night, and Hongbin doesn’t waste energy questioning it. He’s tired of being confused and he’s tired of his constant frustration with himself, so instead, when he wakes up, he just lies there with Taekwoon in his arms. Taekwoon’s got his head on Hongbin’s chest, clinging to him, and he’s got the smallest of smiles on his face as Hongbin strokes his hair, even though Hongbin can tell from his heartbeat that he’s still asleep.

If he’d thought his fixation on Taekwoon’s heartbeat would have faded after feeding on him, he could not have been more wrong. If anything it’s gotten worse, and while it’s not making him want to feed again it’s still unnerving. He has never felt anything like this before. Sanghyuk’s heart beats, but it’s never been an issue, has never driven him mad; maybe it’s because some primal part of him recognises that Sanghyuk isn’t prey. He doesn’t know. He’s tired of that, too, when it comes to Taekwoon—tired of being in the dark all the time. It’s exhausting.

“Good evening,” Taekwoon croaks, his voice thick with sleep. He props himself up on an elbow and gives Hongbin a sleepy smile, one of his eyes still closed. “How long have you been awake?”

“Since sunset.”

“Oh.” Taekwoon settles himself back down on Hongbin’s chest and sighs happily. “Keep doing that. It’s nice.”

Hongbin does, since he can’t refuse Taekwoon anything. His hair is long enough for Hongbin to run his fingers through it, and he adds that to the growing list of things he needs to get done or teach Taekwoon how to do (with varying success levels). Going to the hairdresser shouldn’t be too difficult, though. It’s only until he thinks this that he realises he hasn’t got a haircut in a while either. His growth isn’t so drastic as Wonshik’s—when he was mortal he wore his hair longer in the front than he does now but otherwise it’s quite similar—but it’s still annoying. It’s not like he can ask Taekwoon to cut it, because he’d probably end up bald, so he adds that to his mental list as well.

“What are we doing today?” Taekwoon murmurs, as if he can read Hongbin’s mind. If only.

“Getting you a phone, for starters,” Hongbin replies. “That way you can just message me if you get worried. And then a haircut for both of us.”

Taekwoon goes to touch his own hair at that, and brushes Hongbin’s hand on the way. “Oh... A haircut… I didn’t even think. I am too used to shapeshifting.”

“Yeah,” Hongbin says, because while he can’t shapeshift and has to rely on ordinary mortal tactics to keep himself groomed, he’s heard enough about it over the years from Sanghyuk and Hakyeon. It’s part of the reason why they look so perfect. They’re always shapeshifting away tiny imperfections that all mortals have—flyaways, wrinkles in clothes—without even realising it, meaning that no creature can really compare to the beauty of an incubus or a succubus.

“Is that what you miss the most?” he finds himself asking, apropos of nothing, the words slipping out of him for no other reason than it feels right to ask, here in this bed with Taekwoon in his arms. He still can’t quite wrap his head around that. He doesn’t know if he ever will.

“About being immortal?” Taekwoon asks, and when Hongbin nods an assent, rolls onto his back and hums in thought. “It was useful, but I did not utilise it all that much, beyond clothes. Angels do not often hide their features like nephilim do. I think… I think I miss touch the most.” As if to demonstrate, he reaches for Hongbin’s hand. “That’s how angels communicate with each other in Heaven, by touch. It’s partly why we cannot lie. I did not realise how blind I would feel without it. I did not even realise how much I relied on it.”

“How much could you see? When you touched someone, I mean.”

Taekwoon closes his eyes. “It depends. On the length of the touch, mainly. Less than a second or so I am be able to read thoughts, recent memories. The longer the touch the more I can read.”

He’s _still_ using the present tense, and Hongbin makes a note to talk to him about that again. It’s alarming, but there’s not exactly anything he can do about it. “We touched for ages. How much of my mind did you see?”

Taekwoon inhales, exhales slowly, shakily, and he opens his eyes again and meets Hongbin’s with an indescribable expression. It’s almost somewhere between sadness and wonder, and Hongbin stops breathing. “Everything,” he whispers, and touches Hongbin’s face. “I saw everything.”

For a moment they hover there, suspended. Any movement will break the moment so Hongbin doesn’t dare. Taekwoon is too afraid to, as well; Hongbin can hear it in his heartbeat, smell the adrenaline washing over him in waves. His gums ache and throb, but he holds his fangs back with sheer force of will. The thought of Taekwoon seeing every corner of his mind, including the worst parts of him that Sanghyuk doesn’t even know about, has him trembling. It should be alarming. It _should_ be. But it’s not. Hongbin doesn’t have words for what he’s feeling, but his chest is tight, and all there is is the two of them.

Taekwoon looks away first, sitting up and running a hand through his too-long hair. “I know you better than you know yourself, Hongbin,” he jokes, but it falls flat. “So watch out.”

“You can’t threaten me anymore. I’m not scared of you,” Hongbin replies, trying for playful and at least doing better than Taekwoon did. They’re both hyper-aware of the weird atmosphere, and Hongbin can tell Taekwoon doesn’t know what to do with himself.

“Maybe you should be.” Taekwoon gets off the bed and stretches, only to yelp when Hongbin nudges him in the back, sending him tripping forward. “Hongbin! What the fuck!”

They both look at each other. Taekwoon is clearly as startled as Hongbin is to hear that word coming from his mouth, and it doesn’t sound or look right. But then Hongbin starts laughing at the absurdity of it all, and then Taekwoon’s falling on him and trying to tickle him in revenge, and they end up play wrestling on the bed, huffing and puffing and wheezing with laughter. “You shouldn’t say that!” Hongbin yells, and then is pinned to the mattress by Taekwoon. “You can’t swear!”

“Why not! Fuck! Fuck shit bitch cunt mother fucker—” Taekwoon’s cut off by Hongbin wresting free of his grip and flipping their positions.

Face to face. Hongbin has both of Taekwoon’s arms pinned above his head, and Taekwoon is panting, stretching. His neck—his neck is right there, _right there_ , and Hongbin can see his pulse. His eyes flick to Taekwoon’s lips, back to his neck, and then he realises Taekwoon is no longer laughing and is instead watching him carefully.

For a long moment, Hongbin wrestles with his desire. How he pulls away he doesn’t know, but he manages it, and Taekwoon lets him go. Guilt is beating through his whole body, and although he tells himself he doesn’t know why, he really does—for a moment he couldn’t separate the desire for Taekwoon’s blood from desire for Taekwoon himself. The idea of that, the thought, shocks him so abruptly he’s winded. How the fuck—where the fuck had _that_ come from?

 _Sanghyuk_ , he thinks, looking down at his shaking hands.

Too much. Too much, and yet not enough.

“Get dressed,” he croaks, somehow making his limbs work enough to get off the bed, stumbling towards the bathroom. “We’ll leave soon.”

He slams the door behind him just as the tears welling in his eyes start to fall.

//

By the time they’re out on the way to the nearest phone store, Hongbin has regained most, if not all, of his composure. He knew Taekwoon could hear him muffling his sobs in the bathroom, and this is probably why he keeps giving him strange sideways looks. He doesn’t say anything, though. He doesn’t try and touch Hongbin either, and for that, Hongbin is grateful. He doesn’t know if he can handle touch right now.

“Okay,” Hongbin starts once they’re inside, the overbearing salespeople keeping a safe distance thanks to a touch of glamour. “Do you want an iPhone or an android?”

“What do you have?”

“An iPhone.”

Sanghyuk had been the one to convert him to a smartphone, actually. In the beginning of their relationship Hongbin had still been using an old Nokia brick phone handed down to him from Wonshik, because all he needed a phone for was answering texts and the very occasional call. But then Sanghyuk had gotten sick of not being able to kakao Hongbin, or tag him in couples memes on SNS, and had put his foot down. Hongbin had ended up with an iPhone and he’s actually surprised at how useful it’s been (even though Sanghyuk had had to sit down with him for a good few hours to teach him how to use it). He even has a special map of the city downloaded with his territory and Wonshik’s territory marked out in a nice grey, with other vamp territories in colour-coded segments corresponding to their threat level (Hongbin hasn’t seen or heard from Jiho since that night, and he is glad, not that he’s been patrolling his territory anymore since he doesn’t even live in it now). It shouldn’t make him sad, thinking about Sanghyuk in relation to his damn phone, but it does anyway and he touches it in his pocket as if to make sure it’s really there.

“iPhone it is, then,” Taekwoon replies.

It takes an age to get Taekwoon set up with the phone and the contract—he has no idea what data and gigabytes and calls and texts mean, so he quickly gets bored and antsy—but by the time they finally leave Taekwoon has a brand-new iPhone in his hands, frowning at it. “How do _you_ use it, though?”

“By touching the screen,” Hongbin sighs in response.

“May I see yours?”

Hongbin hands it over, and Taekwoon begins inspecting it. He blinks at the wallpaper that flashes up when he presses the home button; it’s a selfie of Hongbin and Sanghyuk, Hongbin with his fangs bared in mock irritation as Sanghyuk kisses him on the cheek. Hongbin doesn’t even remember when it was taken. He hasn’t changed it because he can’t really bear to, even though he has been avoiding using his phone for that exact reason.

 _Oh, Sanghyuk,_ he thinks, staring at the photo. _What the hell have I done?_

“This is a nice photo,” Taekwoon murmurs. “You look happy.”

“We were,” Hongbin says, and then takes his phone back and with a few quick swipes changes the wallpaper back to its default photo of the Earth from space. “Doesn’t matter now. Here, let me show you how to use it.”

Hongbin talks him through the phone’s basic functions as he walks, but it’s half-hearted and Taekwoon can sense it; he plays up his incompetence even more, but it’s not very funny. Instead Hongbin just gets more and more frustrated, and the fourth time Taekwoon asks what the home button is Hongbin snaps and snatches the phone out of his hands, resisting the urge to fling it away. “What the _fuck_ is wrong with you?”

For his part, Taekwoon doesn’t even get nervous in the face of Hongbin’s irritation. “Whatever do you mean, Hongbin?”

“You know what I mean! You’ve been acting like this for weeks and I can’t tell if you’re doing it because you think it’s funny or because you’re being stubborn. But you’re smart, Taekwoon. You’re fucking smart and I don’t understand why you suddenly can’t _do_ anything, even simple shit I’ve showed you before. So. What the hell is wrong with you?”

He expected anger, maybe, or even protests. But Taekwoon crumples, folding in himself and withdrawing from Hongbin viscerally, and with a sinking feeling Hongbin realises maybe he’s fucked up. “I won’t tell you,” he whispers, cradling his new phone to his chest.

“I—”

“I am not telling you,” he repeats, enunciating every word. He’s got tears in his eyes threatening to spill over, and Hongbin’s not even sure why, but he’s suddenly too tired to argue and instead just turns and starts walking home. Let Taekwoon have his strange secrets. Let him pretend to be a bumbling idiot if it makes him feel better. Hongbin doesn’t care anymore.

Taekwoon catches up to him after a minute or so, and they walk in silence. Hongbin’s relieved to see that Taekwoon isn’t crying anymore and is staring studiously downward, which makes it even stranger when he makes a sudden detour into a convenience store, making a beeline for the instant ramyun.

“Comfort food,” he whispers when Hongbin gives him a look, and Hongbin’s heart hurts.

He lets Taekwoon drag him all over the convenience store, stocking up on junk food for no other reason than he seemingly can, and when he comes to a stop in front of the alcohol aisle Hongbin doesn’t even look up from the floor until he hears the clink of bottles. “Hey, what the hell are you doing?”

“Am I not over nineteen?” Taekwoon replies calmly, pointing to the sign next to the fridge that does indeed say _alcohol sales prohibited to minors under 19._

“That’s not the point!” Hongbin splutters, yanking the two bottles of soju out of Taekwoon’s hands.

He’s not even sure why he doesn’t want Taekwoon drinking—as he is with so many things these days—only that he fears the loss of inhibitions that come with it. The fact that he is being honest with himself about that fear says more than words ever could, but he still shies away from thoughts that stray in any direction except _no alcohol for Taekwoon_. He can’t admit anything to himself, not about what he’s feeling or even about what he thinks he’s feeling, because that will truly be the end of him. He knows it.

“What _is_ the point?” Taekwoon counters, taking the bottles back smoothly and stepping forward, bringing their faces close together. “I would like to try alcohol. I have read much about it. Now I am mortal, I can try it. If you would rather I try it elsewhere, I will not drink it in your presence.”

“That’s not what I—” Hongbin cuts himself off and runs a hand through his too-long hair, exasperated beyond words. He feels like his world, the world he’s so carefully built in the wake of What He Did, is falling down around his ears. He feels completely out of control. And yet he just can’t care anymore. He’s done. He’s _done_. He’s exhausted and burnt-out from being so mournful all the time, so he just sighs and reaches past Taekwoon into the fridge, pulling out a bottle of flavoured soju. _Fuck it all to hell,_ he thinks, and waves the bottle in Taekwoon’s face. “Start off with flavoured. I don’t want you vomiting all over my clean bathroom.”

A smile splits Taekwoon’s face in two, the first genuine smile he’s had all night, and Hongbin can’t help but smile back. “That is yet another mortal thing I haven’t experienced,” he says, and obligingly takes the bottle of soju from Hongbin. “Yet.”

His steps are a little lighter as they leave the convenience store, a plastic bag swinging from his fingers, and the clink of the bottles is a nice soundtrack to the smile on Taekwoon’s face.

//

By the time they return home with freshly-cut hair—Taekwoon looks more angelic than ever with his hair back to how it was, long in the front, short on the sides, and parted in the middle—the soju is warm, so Hongbin fishes out some ice cubes from where they were languishing in a tray that he’d bought on one of his trips to the supermarket.

“This will suck,” he warns, offering Taekwoon the tiny glass he’s poured that’s actually more ice than soju—grapefruit flavour, to be exact.

Taekwoon sniffs it and pulls such a face Hongbin can’t help but laugh, and his laughter turns to bellows when Taekwoon takes a sip and gags, sticking out his tongue. “Hong _bin_ ,” he whines. “It burns!”

“That’s how you know it’s working,” Hongbin says around his own glass, having already tossed back a shot. It will take a lot more to get him drunk than it will Taekwoon, so he’s already attempting to outpace him. “You’ll get used to it.”

Taekwoon screws up his face in clear skepticism, but downs the rest of the drink anyway. “How do I know it’s working?” he asks, and then freezes. “What if it _can’t_ work?”

“I don’t think Jaehwan has that power,” Hongbin replies dryly, getting up to refill their glasses. “Just relax. You’ll know.”

To try and aid Taekwoon in said relaxation, Hongbin switches on the TV, and they settle onto the sofa bed—that they’ve never bothered to flip back over to a sofa—and watch, keeping a careful distance between them. Taekwoon is sipping at his drink, thankfully, but Hongbin gives up on his glass and drinks straight from the bottle instead. By the time he’s finished the grapefruit and is halfway through the regular soju, he’s feeling tipsy, and when Taekwoon spills his drink all over the bed it’s clear it’s affecting him too.

“Oops,” he slurs, eyes wide. “Sorry, Hongbin. At least it’s on my side.”

Hongbin snorts, swaying a little on his feet as he fetches a towel from the bathroom and flings it at Taekwoon. When it lands on his face, he starts outright laughing, and that feels nice. “That’s bullshit. You don’t have a side.”

“What does that mean?” Taekwoon says, screwing up his face as he dabs at the soju wet patch, rather ineffectively.

“It means you cling to me like a—like a something that likes to cling.” Hongbin takes a long, long swig from the soju bottle, sticking out his tongue when he’s done.

“Limpet,” Taekwoon suggests. “Barnacle. Cling film.”

“All of the above,” Hongbin says, waving the bottle. “That’s you.”

Taekwoon makes a face and reaches for the bottle, but Hongbin holds it out of his grasp. “Please,” he says with a pout, but Hongbin doesn’t waver.

“You gonna spill it again?”

“No,” Taekwoon says, and then immediately proves Hongbin wrong when he pours it all down his front. “Oops.”

“I’m cutting you off,” Hongbin barks, yanking the bottle away and, before Taekwoon can even protest, brings it to his lips and chugs the remainder. He keeps drinking over Taekwoon’s outraged squeaks and drinks until the bottle is empty, and tosses it onto the bed with a smile. “There. Now you can’t wreak havoc.”

Taekwoon pulls off his shirt, clutching it close to his chest and pouting with everything he has. “Hongbin,” he whines, “Hongbin hyung, I wanted—”

“Don’t call me that,” Hongbin snaps, rearing back. His eyes are red, he knows, but he can’t control it. “I’m not your hyung.”

“You feel like it sometimes—”

Hongbin leans closer, putting their faces together so Taekwoon can understand, even while drunk, the seriousness of the situation. “ _I am not your hyung_. In any sense of the word. Don’t call me that again.”

Taekwoon doesn’t flinch, doesn’t lean away. He blinks up at Hongbin, his eyes wide, and nods knowingly. “Sanghyuk calls you hyung,” he murmurs, and it’s not a question but a statement. He must have lifted that from Hongbin’s memories back when he still could. “Alright. I apologise.”

They fall into silence. Taekwoon fetches a new shirt and then puts a towel over the wet patch on the bed, and they resume watching the television. Hongbin grabs the bottle of wine he stole from that human and pours them both glasses—Taekwoon likes this much more than he did the soju, which is amusing. It feels very respectable, sitting there at opposite ends of the bed, watching a historical drama and sipping on very expensive red wine. It’s something he’d do with Wonshik, and that thought makes him antsy.

When the show ends, another drama begins, but this one Hongbin recognises instantly and he fumbles for the remote. He’s drunker than he thought because it takes him a few goes for him to find the button for the channel, but by the time he’s figured it out he’s trembling a little and Taekwoon is staring at him as if he’s grown another head. He doesn’t deserve an explanation, really, but Hongbin gives him one anyway. “That was Sanghyuk’s favourite.”

“Oh.” Taekwoon stares down at his glass. “You miss him a lot.” He pauses. “I—no. Never mind.”

Hongbin finishes what was in his glass, and it emboldens him. “No, go on.”

“I… was going to ask what you missed about him.”

“Ah,” Hongbin replies, and scoots down a little so he’s flat on his back and can stare at the ceiling. “That is a very long list.” But Taekwoon doesn’t reply, so he sighs and closes his eyes. “I miss the sound of his voice. I miss the way his eyes would glow yellow whenever he got upset. I probably shouldn’t have, but I always found it cute. I... miss how he couldn’t ever sit in furniture properly. I miss the way he’d tease me about the food I was missing out on. I love how he’d heat up blood for me and wake me up with it. I miss the way he touched me.”

There’s a long, long silence. Hongbin isn’t crying, which is a good sign. The hurt at what he’s done, at what Sanghyuk had said, has dulled from something sharp and inescapable to a dull throb that he could, in time, get used to. He doesn’t want to, but he sees no other way. Sanghyuk does not want anything to do with him, and Hongbin still loves him, and this is the way it will have to be.

“How did he touch you?”

Taekwoon sounds more hesitant than Hongbin has ever heard him, and when Hongbin sits up he looks it, too, clutching his empty wine glass like an anchor. The world is pleasantly fuzzy and for a moment Hongbin just looks at Taekwoon, who looks back at him, and then he scoots in closer so they’re face to face.

“Like this,” he murmurs, tracing a hand up Taekwoon’s shoulder, skimming over his neck to come to rest on his cheek.

“Ah,” Taekwoon replies, his eyes fluttering shut. Hongbin can hear his heart. It’s racing. “That’s nice.”

Hongbin moves his hand down to Taekwoon’s lips, brushing his fingertips over them gently. He really does have the prettiest lips, he thinks; a curious rosebud shape that’s unlike anything he’s seen before. He can’t quite believe this is the first time he’s realising it, but Taekwoon really is beautiful, in an ethereal, otherworldly way. His hand continues its journey down Taekwoon’s neck, over his pulse, as jumping and ragged as his breath, before he slips his hand underneath Taekwoon’s shirt and lays his palm flat on the tattoo on his collarbone.

Taekwoon’s eyes snap open and he tosses the empty glass aside before he grabs Hongbin’s wrist, his fingers digging in painfully. “Hongbin,” he says, and his voice is thick with a need that Hongbin is entirely unfamiliar with. It makes him even more beautiful, and he shifts closer, unable to help himself. “That…”

“What does it feel like?” Hongbin whispers, only realising now that his fangs are out.

“Like…” Taekwoon reaches for Hongbin’s other hand, but Hongbin already knows what to do. This he slips underneath Taekwoon’s shirt too, from the bottom, skimming over his belly and resting on one of the tattoos on his ribs. He arches at the touch, his head tipping back, and Hongbin aches to bite him. “Like nothing I have ever felt before. Like I am on fire from the inside out.”

“It hurts?”

“No,” Taekwoon breathes, looking at Hongbin—and Hongbin can _see_ it, he can see that fire, lighting him up. “It feels good.”

Hongbin doesn’t know what possesses him to do what he does next, only that he is filled with a sudden urge. He knows it’s a bad idea. He knows it’s a catastrophically bad idea, as have been so many decisions he’s been making lately, but with the fog of alcohol in his brain he just cannot resist temptation—and Taekwoon is the epitome of temptation.

He moves in closer, closer, closest, close enough to brush his lips along the side of Taekwoon’s neck. He holds them there above Taekwoon’s racing pulse, feeling him tremble, and then licks him once. “May I?” he whispers.

“Please,” Taekwoon says, and he sounds undone.

Biting from the neck is a thousand times more sensual than biting from the wrist, and as soon as Hongbin sinks his fangs in Taekwoon arches up and shudders and—and they’re so close that Hongbin can feel it, can feel everything. Taekwoon wraps his arms around Hongbin’s waist as he drinks, holding him there, and Hongbin realises very vaguely that he’s moaning. It’s a beautiful noise, his voice pitching up and trailing off at the end, and Hongbin is absolutely transfixed.

He’s not sure who falls first; either he loses his balance or Taekwoon shoves him, but then he’s on his back, inhaling a shaky, raggedy breath before Taekwoon lies down on top of him, tangling his hands in Hongbin’s hair and dragging his head back towards the weeping wound. Hongbin is helpless to resist even if he wanted to, which he most certainly does not, so he latches on once more and digs his nails into Taekwoon’s back when he moans. Taekwoon’s body is so different from Sanghyuk’s—he’s all sharp angles, long and lanky; Sanghyuk had bulk but Taekwoon has length and the difference is exhilarating in such a base way that Hongbin wraps his legs around Taekwoon’s hips, bringing him even closer.

His blood is life. He’d thought that the first time he drunk from Taekwoon, that night in the street, but now it’s even more true because he can taste the humanity flowing through his veins. It colours the air between them until Hongbin can’t breathe. He’s so overwhelmed with sensations—the taste of Taekwoon’s blood, the way he feels, the noises he’s making—that he doesn’t even realise he’s achingly hard until Taekwoon rocks their hips together and he gasps, his eyes snapping open not in horror but in shock at the desire that tears through him.

“Hongbin,” Taekwoon moans in his ear, his breath hot on Hongbin’s cheek. “Don’t stop—”

 _We cannot be,_ he realises with startling clarity as Taekwoon grinds into him, craving pleasure that Hongbin can’t give. _We cannot be not now not ever—Sanghyuk_ —and neatly he gives the wound a swipe with his tongue to close it and shoves Taekwoon away.

“I want you,” he gasps, coming straight back for more. His gaze is bleary, clouded, but he doesn’t protest when Hongbin stops him with a hand in the middle of his chest. He is an addict, as Hongbin knew he would become, and he hates himself.

“We can’t,” he says, his voice coming out weaker than how he’d intended. He has adrenaline flooding through his body in the worst way, but he can sense the guilt in the wings waiting to take over. “Taekwoon, we can’t.”

“We can’t _what?”_ Taekwoon asks, with startling clarity.

Hongbin can’t say, because if he says it he will be admitting to himself what he has been denying for some time, and he is not ready for that. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever be ready. He still isn’t even sure what he feels, or how he has come to feel it, only that it’s new and it terrifies him and that he knows the pattern of Taekwoon’s heartbeat just as well as he knows Sanghyuk’s, now, and that that is significant in a way he is not sure he will ever have words for.

“You know,” he says, his heart awfully heavy.

Taekwoon does not reply.

//

He sleeps in the bathroom that day, closing the door and locking it, not because he thinks Taekwoon is about to burst in but because he needs the security it provides. His heart is aching in a way it has never ached before, and for the first time in his life he feels torn. He can’t even think to himself about what he should do, because he is still comfortably in denial, refusing to admit that things between him and Taekwoon might have changed—that the way he feels about Taekwoon _has_ changed. That is an eventuality he hasn’t prepared for and one he will never be ready for, so he just denies and denies and denies until dawn comes and he passes out, thankful at least that he can’t be haunted by this in his dreams.


	5. Chapter 5

_are you sure you want to do this?_ Hakyeon’s text reads, and it’s with trembling hands that Sanghyuk presses out, halting and slow, a _yes_ in reply. It’s a lie and they both know it—all Hakyeon would have to do is look at the bond to see—but what else is he meant to say?

He hasn’t spent this long apart from Hongbin since they first got together, and it makes him feel like he is going insane. Maybe he has. Hakyeon had taken him out of the city in an attempt to stop him crying, but it hadn’t really worked. Sanghyuk hadn’t realised how much of himself was wrapped up in Hongbin, and now that he’s gone he is bereft, as if he’s lost half of himself. He is not sure how much room he has inside himself for him, between his love for Hongbin and his love for Hakyeon, but now he has lost one of those he finds he doesn’t like what he sees when he looks in the mirror.

He knocks on the door with intent, a quick _rap-rap_ of his knuckles on the wood. He’s come after sunset because he’s still not sure if Hongbin can walk in the sun and the idea of being stuck in a room with Taekwoon is his idea of hell, but he doesn’t even know if they’re home until he hears the shuffle of feet from inside.

He expects Hongbin, but it’s Taekwoon who opens the door, and it’s almost comical how fast his expression turns from curiosity to one of abject fear. Hongbin is nowhere to be seen, and before Taekwoon can open his mouth to call for him, Sanghyuk takes a step forward and then another, amused at how Taekwoon retreats from him so clearly. It’s like he’s another person wearing Taekwoon’s face, because now he barely resembles the angel he used to be. Sanghyuk still doesn’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing.

“Hongbin,” Taekwoon calls, his voice trembling. “Hongbin, there’s—”

The bathroom door opens and Hongbin is between them before Sanghyuk can even register his presence. “Don’t,” he snarls, and Sanghyuk is frozen at this display of territorialism, complete with fangs and flashing red eyes.

“I wasn’t,” he says easily, casually, even though he feels like he’s being split open again at seeing Hongbin.

He looks the same. His hair is a little shorter than the last time they met, his clothes different, but there’s still that strangeness about his face, the way he carries himself. He _has_ changed, Sanghyuk decides, studying him. He doesn’t know how and he doesn’t know why, but he has. It’s thoroughly unsettling.

“What do you want?” Hongbin asks not unkindly, straightening up and retracting his fangs.

Taekwoon is still cowering against the wall over Hongbin’s shoulder, and it’s hard to stop looking at him. His pretty face is transformed when he’s afraid. Sanghyuk hates himself for liking this, but he figures that getting a little kick from the sight of a once-great being recoiling in fear from _him_ is what he deserves. “I wanted to talk,” he says, tearing his gaze away from Taekwoon to meet Hongbin’s eyes. It’s not a lie, but it’s not the full truth, either.

“Fine. Okay,” Hongbin says, and he softens before Sanghyuk’s eyes, transforming fully back into the Hongbin he knows. “Let’s go for a walk?”

Sanghyuk shakes his head, glancing at Taekwoon again. “We can stay here.”

“I will leave—” Taekwoon begins to say, edging for the door even though he’s still wearing his pyjamas—it’s a small, disloyal part of Sanghyuk’s mind that thinks he looks rather endearing—but freezes when Sanghyuk shakes his head.

“I wanted to talk to you both,” Sanghyuk confesses, hating himself for the truth.

There’s a pause before Hongbin and Taekwoon look at each other, clearly startled. “Oh,” Hongbin says quietly. “Okay. That’s fine. Um, come in.”

Sanghyuk still feels like he’s making a huge mistake as he does just that, closing the door behind him neatly and turning to survey the apartment, but what else can he do? The worst of his anguish and anger has passed, and now he just wants to understand. He knows Taekwoon has changed. He’s seen that for himself. But he doesn’t know if he believes that he’s changed on the inside, is truly sorry for everything he’s done; he doesn’t even know if it matters. He has never loved anyone the way he loves Hongbin, and living without him is damn near impossible.

Not as impossible, though, as when he realises what he’s looking at. There’s a small sofa squashed in the corner of the combined living/lounge/dining/bedroom, a television with a dejected-looking bean bag next to it, and a chest of drawers underneath the taped-up window, but taking pride of place in the middle of the room is a sofa bed that’s currently more of a bed than a sofa, the sheets messy and unmade.

There’s only one bed.

“Getting cosy, are you?” he murmurs, pointing at the sofa bed and marvelling at how neither his finger or voice wavers even though his heart is beating in his throat.

“Hongbin doesn’t sleep there,” Taekwoon offers, his arms still wrapped around himself like armour. He meets Sanghyuk’s eyes without looking away, though; holds his gaze with a small bit of courage. “He sleeps on the old sofa.”

“I see,” Sanghyuk murmurs, picking his way across the carpet—complete with old blood stains—to flop on the proper sofa. He gets a waft of Hongbin-smell from the pillows when he does, and relaxes a little bit. Maybe he isn’t lying. “Still. Not much room.”

“I thought it best while Taekwoon was still adjusting,” Hongbin says delicately, hovering for a moment before lowering himself into the beanbag. It’s a little bit of an absurd position for a serious discussion, but Sanghyuk knows—he _knows_ , he knows Hongbin so well—that he doesn’t want to sit on the bed for fear of it being too intimate. “He needs me… close.”

Taekwoon disappears into the kitchen at the sound of his name, and Sanghyuk hears the kettle flick on and the sound of cupboards opening and closing. It’s so revoltingly domestic that he has to fix his eyes on a spot on the wall so he doesn’t start crying, so afraid he’s losing Hongbin to this nightmare of a creature or, worse, that he is already lost. Sanghyuk hates Hongbin, he _loathes_ him, but he loves him more than words can describe and he doesn’t want to live without him.

 _What the fuck are we going to do?_ he thinks, meeting Hongbin’s eyes and seeing those exact words mirrored in his own stare. _You fucked it._

“Close is one word for it,” he replies, and Hongbin looks away. “Sorry... Sorry. I didn’t mean to come here to be… antagonistic.”

“What did you come here for?”

He wish he knew. “I don’t really know. I wanted to see you. And I wanted to… talk to him.” When Hongbin looks up, Sanghyuk’s lip curls at the hope in his eyes. “I want to believe you when you say he’s changed… but I don’t know if I do.”

As if he’s been summoned—although Sanghyuk winces when he thinks that; maybe not the best term to use—Taekwoon reappears, bearing two mugs of coffee. He hands one to Hongbin and approaches Sanghyuk gingerly, the mug held out in front of him as if it’s a peace offering. “A splash of milk and two sugars,” he whispers. “Just the way you like it.”

“How do you know that?” Sanghyuk asks, looking up at him, letting his eyes glow yellow and letting what power he has wash over Taekwoon. He doesn’t flinch, though. He’s clearly still terrified but he holds his ground, and Sanghyuk respects him just a little more and takes the mug, even if he’s unnerved.

“I saw it in Hongbin’s mind,” Taekwoon says, and then settles himself gingerly on the end of the bed, wrapping his arms around himself once more.

Ah. Yes. Sanghyuk had forgotten about that lovely ability, and tries to soothe himself by taking a swig of coffee instead. It would maybe make this easier if Taekwoon made shit coffee, but it’s not, and he hates himself for taking another swallow and scalding his tongue.

Taekwoon smiles, a small one, and for a second Sanghyuk sees him as he was that night in the alley, leaning over Sanghyuk as he died and smiling about it. But he blinks and brings himself back, and when he wraps his hands around the mug the heat tethers him to earth once more. “So,” he says, feeling suddenly awkward. “How’s being human?”

He’s staring pointedly at the tattoos on the back of Taekwoon’s hand as he says this, and Taekwoon touches one of them distractedly. “Um,” he murmurs, clearly off-balance. “I am adjusting. Hongbin has been a great help.” He pauses, glancing at Hongbin as if he’s not sure what to say. “He misses you a lot.”

“He can speak for himself,” Hongbin adds, shooting Taekwoon a glance and then shrugging a little when Sanghyuk stares at him. “It’s true, though.”

Sanghyuk leans back on the sofa, fingers aimlessly tracing a pattern in the fabric. “I miss you too,” he murmurs, and looks down so he doesn’t have to see the expression on Hongbin’s face. He doesn’t miss Taekwoon’s, though; he’s frowning. “Would you… would you ever come back home?”

“Is that an invitation?”

“No,” Sanghyuk lies immediately, even though it sort of was. “I’m just wondering. How long are you going to stay here for?” He dares a glance up, and is relieved when he sees Hongbin just looks surprised by the question.

“I’m not welcome back home. Wonshik hyung is… Wonshik hyung is still upset with me. I don’t think Hakyeon hyung will ever forgive me. He probably wants to kill me more than he wants to kill Taekwoon.” Taekwoon makes a noise and cringes back onto the bed, and Hongbin winces. “Sorry.”

“I meant with me.”

Hongbin pauses, mulling over his words. When he finally does speak it’s with a measured tone, his gaze even and steady even though Sanghyuk can see his hands shaking. “Have you forgiven me?”

Sanghyuk wants to say _yes_. He wants to say _I will_ , because he thinks he will, with time. But right now it’s hard to find the words. The wound is still so raw, and with Taekwoon sitting right there, forgiveness is hard to find. “I don’t… know…” he murmurs, which is an answer in and of itself. Hongbin crumples, folding in on himself, and Sanghyuk flounders, trying to find something to offer him. “I think—I think I will, though, but… I don’t know.”

He glances at Taekwoon as he says it, and Taekwoon doesn’t look away. He just draws his knees up to his chest and hugs them, and he looks so unbearably sad that Sanghyuk wants to—wants to comfort him, and the thought is so absurd that he digs his nails into his palm to center himself. “And what do you have to say for yourself?” he barks, going on the attack out of desperation.

Taekwoon flinches. “I am sorry, Sanghyuk,” he replies, and hearing Taekwoon say his name makes Sanghyuk’s stomach twist. “I’m sorry I killed you. I used you in a pawn in my game and that wasn’t right. If I could go back and do everything differently, I would.” He looks away and shakes his head, and even though he’s human, even though he’s got normal eyes and no fangs (how did he get rid of those, Sanghyuk wonders) he looks impossibly ancient. “But I must atone for my sins.”

The worst part is that it’s unfalteringly genuine. The words could sound trite, but they don’t at all, and Sanghyuk is left speechless for a long while. “Hongbin said you… he said you sacrificed yourself for him. Is that true?”

“I did. I thought I… I thought I could make everything right. I know that I must die. I know that you want me to, and I know your maker wishes to kill me himself. I thought that—that if Hongbin did not have to pay for my mistakes, then it would be alright.” He shakes his head. “And yet I am still alive somehow.”

“I couldn’t let him die,” Hongbin murmurs, and when Sanghyuk looks at him he’s shocked to see he has bloody tears brimming in his eyes. “Sanghyuk, I just couldn’t. He looked—it was horrible. I… I couldn’t.”

Sanghyuk and Hongbin are both new enough that they still cling to part of their humanity that, privately, Sanghyuk thinks the others have shed with time. It’s not that Hakyeon is a monster, but he is ruthless, and to him the world is shades of black and white with no grey to be found. Sanghyuk isn’t sure, and now he knows how Hongbin feels. There is no right and there is no wrong in this situation. Whatever he chose, someone would have gotten hurt. Can Sanghyuk really, honestly hate him for choosing compassion?

He doesn’t know.

He doesn’t think so.

“This fucking sucks,” he groans, scrubbing his hands over his face before getting up, slowly, and making his way over to the beanbag, slowly.

Hongbin watches him approach warily, but he takes Sanghyuk’s hand when offered and they hug. It’s like coming home in a way that Sanghyuk’s not quite felt before. They’re just standing there hugging, but it says more than words ever could, and he feels his knees go weak when Hongbin nuzzles at his neck, muscle memories of thousands of bites over the years making him tremble. He shifts in Hongbin’s arms, turning slightly, and when he opens his eyes he realises Taekwoon is staring at them with barely-concealed jealousy. What makes Sanghyuk gasp, though, isn’t that—in fact, he barely notices Taekwoon’s facial expression.

Taekwoon’s shirt has slipped away from his neck, exposing the mottled bruises and puncture wounds that Sanghyuk recognises instantly as a bite mark.

“Jesus Christ,” he snarls, ripping himself away from Hongbin’s arms, so disgusted he feels like he might just vomit. “You fucking bit him.”

“I couldn’t—” Hongbin starts, but Taekwoon interjects before he can even get a word in.

“It’s my fault,” he says, eyes wide and voice panicked as he claps a hand over the wound on his neck—but it’s too late, Sanghyuk’s seen it. “I made him bite me. I threatened him if he didn’t—”

Sanghyuk is many things. A fool, almost certainly. Too trusting, definitely. But he’s not stupid and he knows when he’s being lied to, and this is a lie flowing out of Taekwoon’s mouth like water. “ _Don’t_ ,” he roars, and Taekwoon shrinks back. “Don’t you dare lie to me.”

“Sanghyuk—” Hongbin says, reaching for Sanghyuk, but he steps out of grabbing range and folds his arms over his chest.

“You _bit_ him,” he says again, still in disbelief.

Rationally it makes sense—Hongbin’s never been the best with his self-control and living with a human twenty-four seven is probably torturous for him—but Sanghyuk’s way past rationality and is edging into hysterical. He thinks he can tolerate Hongbin and Taekwoon being friends, but he can’t tolerate this, whatever the fuck this is.

“You fucking _bit_ him—” he splutters. “Jesus Christ. Do you _love_ him? Is that it? Do you love him like you do me? Have you fucked him—”

“Shut _up!”_ Hongbin screams. “You don’t know what you’re talking about!”

He’s coming undone in front of Sanghyuk’s very eyes, but he doesn’t stop, can’t stop. They are falling apart at the seams. He would rather drive Hongbin away himself than watch him—watch him go down whatever path he’s going down, one where Sanghyuk can’t follow. He _can’t_ love Taekwoon. He can’t.

He can’t.

Can he?

He’s suddenly exhausted, and sags, covering his eyes with his hands so they can’t see him cry. His heart is thudding in his ears, his chest is tight, and he can feel an oncoming panic attack. Hakyeon’s presence floods into him through the bond, trying to comfort, but it’s too late for that.

“Do what you want,” he croaks, pulling his hands away to look at them both. Taekwoon is cringing on the sofa, eyes wide, but Hongbin is an absolute mess; he’s standing there swaying on the spot, bloody tears marring his pretty face. “Do what you want. I don’t care anymore.”

It’s not true and they all know it, but he turns and walks away so he doesn’t have to look at them anymore.

Taekwoon follows him outside, catches his elbow and drags him backwards. They’re nearly touching and up-close Sanghyuk can see just how fresh the bite wound is; it was probably done last night, and his stomach heaves. “He loves you,” he says, and doesn’t move when Sanghyuk snarls at him. “He loves you more than you will ever know. I looked inside his mind and I saw that love and it is endless.”

He leaves, pulling his elbow free of Taekwoon’s grasp, and neither of them follow.

//

Hongbin barely notices that Taekwoon is back inside until he pulls Hongbin into his arms, rocking him gently back and forth and crooning to him. It’s the same song he sung after Hongbin looked into his mind, and it just makes him cry harder; he knows he can’t go back from what he’s done, and knows this is the end of the world as he knows it.

He thought things couldn’t get any worse, but apparently, they always can.

“What is it?” Taekwoon whispers after Hongbin has stopped sobbing. There’s still tears leaking out of him, but he can at least breathe, now. “Hongbin, what’s wrong?”

He can’t say it, because if he says it it will become real, and if it becomes real than all will truly be lost. He _can’t_. He’s not—he’s not—he can’t. “I have to go,” he gasps, and scrambles free of Taekwoon’s arms, making his way to the chest of drawers and ripping out clothes blindly. _Taekwoon’s clothes are my clothes_ , he realises blearily, and grits his teeth so he doesn’t start sobbing again. “I need to—I need to go.”

“You cannot—Hongbin,” Taekwoon says, catching Hongbin’s arms and pulling him close. Being pressed up against him is lovely, but that just fuels Hongbin’s panic even further. “Hongbin, you can’t keep running like this. We should talk about it.”

But Hongbin shakes his head, lips pressed together. If he doesn’t say it it’s not real. He needs it to not be real, because otherwise he is truly lost. “No,” he murmurs, and pulls away. “I’m sorry, Taekwoon, but I just—I can’t be here right now.”

 _I can’t be here with you right now,_ is what he means, and Taekwoon understands and backs away. He looks desperately sad and Hongbin loathes himself for doing this, but knows he needs to. He packs a small bag and makes a beeline for the door, but Taekwoon stops him, standing in front of the door with his arms folded. “Don’t—” he starts, and then his words fail him. His lip is wobbling like he wants to cry, but there’s no tears to be found, just his shaking hands which Hongbin aches to kiss. “Don’t do anything… rash.” When Hongbin doesn’t reply, Taekwoon steps closer. “Don’t go into the sun. Don’t leave me… please.”

Hongbin owes him this much, at least, so he catches one of Taekwoon’s hands and brings it to his cheek. “I won’t,” he promises, and then he goes before temptation can lead him any further down its path.

//

At first Taekwoon sleeps, because he thinks sleeping will at least free him of the ennui wreathing him. But that doesn’t work because he dreams of Hongbin again—just as he’s been dreaming of him every single night since he woke up on the sofa, gasping as he was suddenly confined to mortality—and wakes twisted in the sheets and covered in sweat.

Hongbin is not coming back.

Part of Taekwoon lives in hope, but the rest of him is simply resigned. He knows Hongbin’s plan, has been able to see through his lies all along; the moment he deems Taekwoon competent enough to cope with human life on his own, he’ll leave. Where he will go Taekwoon hasn’t figured out yet, but he fears that maybe Hongbin will meet the sun. Whatever happened today has just accelerated the process. Now he is gone.

In his desperation and exhaustion, he fetches the blanket from the other sofa that Hongbin was sleeping under and brings it to his nose. His senses are horrifically dulled; if he’d done this as an angel he would be getting a wealth of information about Hongbin—what he last fed on, when he last showered, his arousal, his fear, his sadness—but because he is now nothing but a mortal all he gets is a comforting Hongbin-smell. He cradles the blanket with him as he gets back into bed, needing the relief it brings and not bothering to feel ashamed about it.

//

A day passes, and Hongbin doesn’t return.

Taekwoon doesn’t eat. He doesn’t drink. He doesn’t move from bed, where he lies there with the Hongbin blanket in his arms and stares straight ahead at the wall. He has billions of years’ worth of memories to flick through, but all of them pale in comparison to the new ones he has made over the past few months.

Perhaps Hongbin has returned to Sanghyuk.

The thought makes his stomach twist with a feeling he does not have a name for.

//

He sleeps fitfully through the day and wakes again at night, still to an empty apartment. His hunger has woken him, and he cannot ignore it any longer, as much as he would like to. He hauls himself out of bed and traipses into the kitchen, deliberately avoiding looking at the mug that Hongbin has left behind. He stares at nothing as the water boils, and he doesn’t even flinch when he accidentally burns his hand pouring some water into the cup of instant ramyun, even though his instincts nearly make him. He’s not used to being a slave to instincts. He’s used to making his body obey every command, but now he needs to sleep, he needs to eat and drink, and he feels pain differently than he did before; it’s unsettling. Not as bad as not being able to read thoughts, but unsettling all the same.

Being alone as a human, as he’d told Hongbin, is different to being alone as an angel. As an angel, he’d always had his magic thrumming under his skin. All he had to do was think of it and he would be back in Heaven, surrounded by the comforting touches of other angels, the sensations almost overwhelming. As an angel he was never truly alone, but as a human, it is all he ever is.

When he finishes the ramyun he washes the cup and places it in the recycling bin neatly—that trick he had learned after reading a forum online—before returning to the sofa bed and resuming staring at the wall. He finds he’s tracing the shape of the tattoo on the back of his hand absentmindedly, and when he looks down at it, he still has trouble recognising it as his own. This is his hand, of course. The same hand he has been staring at for eternity. But now it is marred with a mark that will not go away, the delicate shape of a sprig of lavender, a taste of what he can never have. He understands why the nephilim did it that way—Lord knows that neither of them want to be matching, in any way—but he still hates it all the same. The tattoos tingle with residual power when he touches them, and it is almost torturous, to be able to taste that power again but not quite. The thought of aging, of staring at those tattoos as he gets old and wrinkly, makes him shudder, and for the first time in a long time he thinks of the mortal woman who had taken him in. He thinks of her kindness and her lack of fear, and he thinks how far he’s come.

He finds himself wishing she would have just left him to die so he wouldn’t have to feel this.

//

On the third day, he showers and stands naked and dripping in the bathroom for an age after he turns off the taps. He waits and waits—he is accustomed to that, after all, even though he no longer has the luxury of time—until the mirror defogs, and then he stares at himself.

He is unrecognisable. Angels loathe shifting away their features; most only do it when required to, when in the presence of mortals. The rest of the time they are as God made them, shaped in His image, perfect. He can count on one hand the amount of times he has seen himself without his eyes and fangs and wings since he has been alive, and now it is all he knows.

Worst of all is that with the tattoos wreathing him—collarbones ribs hands thighs feet, just the same as nephilim—he looks different. He looks vulnerable, the fading bruises on his neck not helping. He has lost weight, for the first time, because now he has caloric needs that he is clearly not meeting; underneath the tattoos his ribs are slightly visible and it makes him shiver. Is it this easy for mortals to waste away?

He twists to looks at his back as much as he can, the only view he will ever get of it. He can see the start of the rib tattoos about halfway down his torso, but they pale in comparison to the scars, evidence of where he has been ripped open and then put back together again piece-by-piece, at the nephilim and Hongbin’s hands. They are ugly and red and raw and are at least a fitting representation of the pain he had felt when they were taken from him, but that is no comfort.

“Am I not good enough for him?” he whispers to his reflection, eyes wide, his movements so very jarringly mortal.

His reflection doesn’t hold any answers, only questions, and so he turns away from it and slips back into bed.

//

Hongbin does not return on the fourth day, nor on the fifth, and on the six day Taekwoon cries and cries and cries because he is really gone. The worst part is that he’ll never know whether he has left for good if he’s dead, and if he really is dead than Taekwoon will simply follow him. It is all he knows, after all.

He considers finding Sanghyuk, but Sanghyuk does not want to be found, at least by him. The other incubus would kill him on sight and he doubts the nephilim would leap to his defense. That thought should unnerve him, but instead it’s reassuring; at least he has a guaranteed way out, should this world get too much. And if Hongbin has gone back to where he really belongs… who is Taekwoon to reappear and ruin everything once more?

He reaches for his new phone that he hasn’t used since the night he brought it home, only to find that it’s dead. By the time he’s plugged it into the charger and waited for it to turn on, he has stopped crying, which is a small comfort. _Hongbin_ , he types, and hesitates for a long, long time. _I hope you are alright. I miss you greatly._ He erases that last part. _I miss you._ Erases that too. _Please stay safe._ Presses send.

Hongbin is his only contact, and he stares at their chatroom until he feels like his eyes are burning, but the little _1_ never goes away. Hongbin never opens the message.

He rolls onto his back and stares at the ceiling, replaying every moment of the meeting between the three of them, him and Hongbin and Sanghyuk. He remembers reading the indecision on Sanghyuk’s face as clear as day; he can’t read minds anymore, but he’s still very good at interpreting body language, and Sanghyuk wears his heart on his sleeve. He remembers that strange feeling in his stomach, watching them hug, and then he remembers his panic when Sanghyuk had seen the bite wound on his neck and was transformed into hysteria. He remembers how heart-wrenching it was to watch them both cry, how Sanghyuk had snarled at him when he went to follow him and tell him the truth. All the lies in the world he can tell, now, and he still just wants to tell the truth. Hongbin’s love for Sanghyuk is endless and bottomless.

As if to remember more, Taekwoon touches the wound, pressing hard so it hurts. It’s just a mottled set of bruises now, yellow and purple, but it’s the only concrete reminder he has of what he’d felt when Hongbin bit him so he’s clinging to it desperately. He still doesn’t have names for the things he feels, and that frustrates him beyond measure; it’s like when he was an angel he could feel more, with his senses, but with a human he simply _feels_ more. Emotions he doesn’t recognise flood into him at all times, and he barely knows how to cope.

He takes the advice he gave to Hongbin when he was sobbing on the bathroom floor, and sleeps, because the nothingness it provides helps.

//

On the seventh day he wakes and rolls over and listens, but nothing but the sound of his own breathing comes to him. He is still alone, and it shouldn’t hurt as much as it does. He knows that much. He shouldn’t—he shouldn’t _care_ this much.

He fetches Hongbin’s laptop from where it’s lying next to the television and opens it slowly. It automatically loads what Hongbin was last working on, which is a file he’s translating from Japanese, and Taekwoon skims it quickly out of interest. Hongbin’s fluent in Japanese to a native level—Taekwoon had lifted that out of his mind once, although he can’t remember when; given when he grew up as a mortal, it makes sense—and the translation is practically flawless. It’s an article from a Japanese newsletter that seems to be vampire-run; it’s talking about recent territory changes in Osaka, and reporting the deaths of several vampires to a brawl. Taekwoon never even thought false immortals would have their own publications, but it makes sense. They are an underground society, of sorts, and what better way to communicate news?

He closes the tab, being careful to click _save_ , and opens a new window in the internet browser. The cursor blinks at him for an age as he chews on a nail—they actually grow now, and he has to keep clipping them because they get annoying—and sorts through his words. He does not even know what he wants to search for, not really. He doubts the internet has any answers for him. All it seems to provide is food and sofas and entertainment.

 _what,_ he types, and then takes a deep breath. _what is love?_

_Love is the most powerful emotion a human being can experience. Love is a force of nature. Love is bigger than you are. Love is inherently free. Love is inherently compassionate and empathic. "What Is Love" is a song recorded by Trinidadian-German Eurodance artist Haddaway for his debut album, The Album. Love is involuntary. Brain science tells us it's a drive like thirst. It's normal, natural to "lose control" in the early stage of romance. Love, like thirst, will make you do strange things, but knowledge is power. It's a natural addiction and treating it like an addiction can help you. We were built to fall in love. Are YOU in love? Click Here to take the Passionate Love Quiz yourself!_

He reads it all with a frown on his face, the unease settling over him like a blanket. There’s a lot of words but no actual concrete definition, and his doubt grows.

 _what does it feel like to be in love?_ He types.

_To some, it's the feeling of excitement when you aren't together and are missing them. For others, it's the slightly odd feeling that makes you a bit giddy. Your heart will beat faster or you might find yourself getting jealous over silly things._

He highlights jealous and searches for the definition, and when he reads the description, it hits him— _jealous_. That’s what he’d been feeling, watching Hongbin and Sanghyuk hug. It’s what he’s been feeling in small increments whenever Hongbin mentioned Sanghyuk, or cried over him; it had even spiked when Hongbin had unlocked his phone to reveal that photo of them looking so happy, such a world away that it had made Taekwoon’s head spin.

He hovers his fingers over the keyboard for a few minutes more before taking a deep breath in and another out and typing: _how do you know when you’re in love?_

 _I think I am in love with Lee Hongbin,_ is what he doesn’t type. Nor does he type _I think I am in love with Lee Hongbin, vampire, and I know it is bad but I cannot help it and it makes me want to die._

“I think I am in love with Lee Hongbin,” he says to the empty air, closing the computer and shoving it away without even seeing the results, his hands shaking, for they cannot be and he finally understands what Hongbin was saying that night: We _can’t_. They can’t.

And yet, for Taekwoon at least, they are.

He suddenly understands why Hongbin had to leave. The room is suddenly too small, too claustrophobic, too choked with memories, and so he gets dressed hurriedly and leaves. He does not even know where he’s going until he’s walked for a mile already, ending up in front of the 24-hour supermarket they frequent.

 _You’re going to die you’re going to die,_ his heart tells him with every pathetic beat. He tries to tune it out as he grabs a trolley somewhat hysterically and starts picking groceries off the shelf at random. That is not news. He has been hyper-aware of the fact that he’s going to die since he first saw those tattoos. But now there’s another thought beating behind it, one that terrifies him, one he keeps shying away from. _He’s not he’s not he’s not,_ his heart tells him, and he starts humming out loud so he doesn’t have to hear it.

He doesn’t even know what he buys. He’s so out of it he drops the groceries on the floor the moment he gets inside, doubling over and taking great gulps of air, suddenly finding it hard to breathe. It’s not—he didn’t—he did not prepare for this, of all things, and he feels like the last piece of the puzzle has clicked into place. No wonder he had been jealous of Sanghyuk. No wonder his skin had hummed whenever he and Hongbin touched; no wonder Hongbin consumes his every waking moment and even his sleeping ones.

He pulls his pyjamas on and falls into bed. He thinks he’s too keyed up to sleep, but the moment he closes his eyes he slips into a dream where he and Hongbin are somewhere very far away from here, on a beach, in the sun, alive forever.

//

Hongbin returns not long before dawn.

Ordinarily Taekwoon wakes up the moment he lets himself in, but tonight, for whatever reason, he keeps sleeping, just a lump with one leg sticking out from under the blanket. Hongbin’s glad, actually. It gives him a few moments to get his thoughts together.

He’d gone to the beach they went to, funnily enough. It wasn’t as pretty as it had seemed in the sunlight, but he’d stood in that water night after night and searched for answers—because he thinks maybe this is where it had begun—but the water hadn’t given him any. Neither had the moon, although he’d begged her to. He was alone and adrift and lost. He would daydream about Taekwoon and Sanghyuk, drift off to sleep with the sound of their heartbeats in his ears even though they were far away, and he would find that when he woke he still did not know himself.

He still does not know himself, but at least now he can breathe, and at least now the guilt is no longer choking him.

He is nearly at the sofa—the proper sofa, not the sofa bed—when he sees one corner of his laptop poking out from underneath the television stand, almost as if it’s been shoved there in a hurry. That is most certainly not where he left it. He doesn’t remember why he knows that, but he does, so he sits on the floor and reaches for it, pulling it open.

His brain refuses to parse the words on the screen, even though they’re in Korean. It should—it should make sense. But he keeps reading them over and over again, because, because the Google search page for _how do you know when you’re in love?_ is open on the screen and he definitely didn’t type that. With trembling hands he opens the history page, and nearly keels over when he reads what is read there:

_03:02 how do you know you’re in love? - Google Search_  
_03:01 Jealousy definition - Google Search_  
_03:00 what does it feel like to be in love? - Google Search_  
_02:57 what is love? - Google Search_

“Oh, Taekwoon,” he whispers, closing the laptop slowly, his chest swelling with so many feelings he cannot get a handle on them all. There’s sadness being edged out by the ever-present guilt—for running and leaving Taekwoon to deal with this on his own—as well as some small sliver of joy, although he doesn’t know why.

Maybe it’s this that makes him turn and make his way over to the sofa bed, crawling into the blankets next to Taekwoon and pulling him close gently, touching him on the face reverently. Maybe it’s that he’s tired of denying; maybe it’s just that he’s listening to what he wants to do instead of second guessing himself at every turn. For once in his life he tunes out every negative thought and emotion, pushing them away in favour of this: Taekwoon waking up, desperately sleepy, and touching his lips. “Hongbin?” he whispers, and his eyes widen. “Hongbin, you came back.”

“I promised, didn’t I?” Hongbin murmurs, and although that was initially a promise he made with no desire to keep, he is glad he listened to his gut and came back. “I won’t leave you.”

“Oh,” Taekwoon breathes, fingers winding in Hongbin’s shirt.

He is ethereal, beautiful, and when he moves closer Hongbin ignores the screaming voice in the back of his head telling him _stop don’t do this you idiot don’t fuck it all up again_ and cups Taekwoon’s cheek, his dead heart in his throat, his fingers trembling, and leans in and kisses Taekwoon.

He’s so pliant underneath Hongbin’s hands that he arches up immediately, one hand falling on Hongbin’s face, the other gripping his arm. When Hongbin pulls back he can hear that Taekwoon’s heart is racing faster than he’s ever heard it before, and he’s sure his own would be doing the same. “Oh,” Taekwoon says again, and touches his lips before touching Hongbin’s, his fingers trembling. “I don’t think I’ll miss Heaven as much anymore.”

Hongbin doesn’t even get a chance to react to that before Taekwoon kisses him again, and there in the darkness of that little room, with the dawn approaching, they find not peace but happiness instead.

//

The first thing Hongbin sees when he opens his eyes right after sunset is Taekwoon sitting at the end of the bed, a steaming mug of coffee in his hands and a smile on his face. “Good morning,” he says, and hands Hongbin the coffee when he sits up. “It’s not… It’s not blood, but I hope it will do.”

Hongbin nearly chokes on the coffee but manages to swallow it, because he didn’t think Taekwoon would remember one anecdote in a sea of others spilled when they were both drunk and focused on other things. But he did, and although it’s not blood, the sentiment is appreciated, even if it makes Hongbin a little sad. “Hi,” he replies, and takes another sip so he doesn’t say anything stupid.

Taekwoon, however, has no such reservations about speaking. “I missed you,” he says, and then crawls over to Hongbin to slide into his lap.

He’s never been shy about touching, but in the wake of what they did last night it makes them both blush, and Taekwoon looks so pretty with pink colouring his cheeks that Hongbin can barely stand it. He swallows the rest of the coffee in one go and sets the mug down so he can anchor himself to Taekwoon’s waist, his hands settling there like they were made to be there.

“I missed you too,” Hongbin murmurs, leaning forward and resting his head on Taekwoon’s chest just so he can hear—feel—his heartbeat, the familiar rhythm reverbing through his skull, vibrating through his whole body, his home. “I’m sorry I left. I just… needed space to think through some things.”

“I was so scared you weren’t going to come back.” When Hongbin looks up, Taekwoon touches his forehead, cheek, chin, as if to make sure he’s solid. “I thought you had left for good.”

“I—” Hongbin says, and he struggles with his lies. “I was never—”

But Taekwoon, ever-vigilant Taekwoon, Taekwoon who has spent a billion years watching, shakes his head and Hongbin shuts up. “Don’t lie to me. I know what you have been doing.”

“What have I been doing?”

“Teaching me,” he replies, voice impassive. “And once I had learned, you were going to go. Maybe to the sun, maybe not. But you were going to leave and never come back.”

“I—”

“Look me in the eyes and lie to me,” Taekwoon murmurs, bringing their faces together so Hongbin can do just that. “Go on. Lie and say you were never planning to meet the dawn, or at the least, leave the country. Lie to me.”

Once upon a time Hongbin could have. But now he can’t, he just can’t, and he buckles under the weight of Taekwoon’s too-knowing and too-human stare and looks away. “That was when I was at my worst. The plan got less… concrete as time went on. As we became closer.”

“And yet you still run.” Taekwoon leans back a little. “That is your first instinct.”

Hongbin wills himself to stay silent, but he can’t manage it, and when he meets Taekwoon’s gaze his eyes are glowing bright red; he can feel the sting. “Sanghyuk dreamt of you for years,” he says, his turn to be emotionless, and Taekwoon blanches. “I held him night after night as he screamed himself hoarse because _you_ were in his nightmares. Just when he was starting to heal I brought you back into his life, begging for your life to be saved, and revealed I had been building a friendship with you for months. And now I—” he cuts himself off, shaking, he can’t say it, he can’t say it. “And now there is us. My first instinct is to run from all the hurt I have caused. Just as yours is to try and die to fix it.”

Taekwoon scowls. “Every instinct an angel has is to live,” he hisses. “I betrayed every instinct I had for you—”

“And I’m grateful. But the truth is we are in an absolutely miserable situation and we’ve both hurt a lot of people with our mistakes and—” _and we’re going to keep hurting them_ , he thinks, but doesn’t say. “And I am not used to hurting people. I don’t like it. So I run to get away from it, because at heart I’m a coward.”

“So why did you come back?”

He grips Taekwoon’s hips a little tighter, a physical reminder of exactly why he came back. “Because I am tired of denying what I feel for you,” he whispers, watching Taekwoon’s eyes widen. “Because I know I’m making another mistake, but when I’m with you, nothing feels like a mistake. Because… because we don’t have the luxury of time, and I want to savour this for as long as we can.”

He has not been this honest with himself since—well, since before he ever met Taekwoon in the street that night. He’s been lying to himself from the start, first that he could keep Taekwoon a secret and live two lives, and then that he wasn’t making a mistake hiding Taekwoon, and then, later, that his feelings for Taekwoon did not extend beyond friendship. He is tired of the lies and he’s tired of the sadness and even though he knows he is hurting himself and Sanghyuk—perhaps beyond repair, even though Hongbin still loves him—he feels as if he is doing the right thing. It certainly feels like the right choice when Taekwoon leans down to kiss him, hands cradling either side of Hongbin’s face. The kiss is ardent and fueled by the desperation that Hongbin’s words have clearly ignited in Taekwoon, and without warning Hongbin’s fangs descend of their own accord.

“Oh,” Taekwoon says, pulling away. “That startled me.”

Hongbin grimaces and wills them to go away, although it’s a struggle for a few seconds. “Sorry. They pop out when I…”

Taekwoon raises an eyebrow. “When you...”

 _He’s really going to make me explain this,_ Hongbin realises, at the exact same time that he realises Taekwoon is enjoying his embarrassment. “When I get turned on,” he replies, holding Taekwoon’s gaze and giving him a smile with a flash of fang—after all, he’s not the virgin out of the two of them.

As he expected, Taekwoon flushes a lovely deep red, and looks away—but his hands, now on Hongbin’s shoulders, tighten. “Ah,” he says, and swallows. “Ah, I see. That explains a lot. Is… is the urge to bite linked to the urge for… sex?”

“It can be, but you can have sex without biting. It’s just not as fun. For me, at least. And you can certainly have biting without sex, or sexual desire. It doesn’t affect Wonshik hyung in that way at all.”

“I see,” Taekwoon murmurs, and then looks back at Hongbin. Just the tips of his ears are red now, and it’s so endearing that Hongbin has to suppress a smile. “I am hardly an expert on vampire physiology. Or sex.”

“I gathered,” Hongbin says dryly. “What’s that mortal saying? You can’t teach an old dog new tricks?”

At this, Taekwoon smirks, and, while being the most predatory he’s looked, it’s also the most attractive he’s looked, and Hongbin’s stomach flips and he feels himself getting hard. “Watch me,” Taekwoon murmurs, voice slippery like water, and pulls Hongbin in to kiss him.

Hongbin has not kissed anyone but Sanghyuk and Hakyeon for years and the newness alone is enough to make his breath hitch, but add in the fact that it’s Taekwoon and he’s so fucking responsive and he feels like he’s going mad after just a few minutes. His whole body is thrumming with the urge to bite and to fuck but he holds himself back, not daring to move in case he freaks Taekwoon out. That is until Taekwoon breaks the kiss to tilt his neck to the side, his eyes-half closed, a smile on his face, and whispers, “Bite me.”

In a flash Hongbin whirls them around so Taekwoon’s on the bed beneath him, and spread out like this he has to take a moment to raggedly inhale because—because he never imagined Taekwoon could be so beautiful to him. And right now he is more than beautiful; his hair is fanned out around him and he’s biting his lip, reaching for Hongbin as if to say _hurry up._ Just one sliver of lavender is peeking out from underneath his shirt, so Hongbin catches the hand closest to him and trails his fingers gently over the tattoo there, just to see.

Taekwoon writhes, arching his back, a whine escaping his lips. “Hongbin—just bite me, _please_ ,” he begs, and so Hongbin leans over him and kisses Taekwoon’s neck—the opposite side to where he’d bitten last time, even though there’s only a hint of a bruise now—before sinking his fangs in, giving them what they both crave.

They are fully clothed but it’s probably the most erotic experience of Hongbin’s long life. Taekwoon’s moans and the way he grabs at Hongbin’s back, clinging to him like he’s not really real, are like nothing he has ever experienced before even though the actions themselves are not new to him. The blood just fuels them even further. There’s that taste of Taekwoon’s old powers there on the tip of his tongue, tantalising him and making time lose meaning. He comes abruptly down to earth, though, when he wedges a thigh between Taekwoon’s and Taekwoon grinds up against him, panting in his ear, and he nearly comes untouched just from that noise.

It happens when he reaches between them to wriggle his hand up Taekwoon’s shirt, splaying his hand on one of the tattoos on his ribs. Taekwoon gasps abruptly and shoves at his shoulder. “Stop, Hongbin, stop—”

Hongbin does, disentangling himself from Taekwoon in such haste he doesn’t even close the bite wound. He backs away and puts space between them, reminding himself to breathe, trying to be normal even though he’s more turned on then he’s been in months. “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” Taekwoon replies, and sits up. “It just got—overwhelming. Give me a moment.”

So Hongbin sits there in silence, his eyes on the trickle of blood trailing down Taekwoon’s neck. He’s more worried than anything else, but doesn’t move for fear of overwhelming Taekwoon further.

“Sorry,” Taekwoon murmurs a few minutes later, opening his eyes and refocusing on Hongbin. “It was just too many sensations at once.”

Hongbin nods, but still doesn’t move. “I understand. And—”

“I—” Taekwoon says at the same time, and they stare at each other. “You first.”

“I was just going to say we don’t have to… do anything that you’re uncomfortable with. I don’t even have a clue what it would be like trying to adjust to a human body, so… I don’t want to, you know, pressure you into anything.” He licks his lips and tastes the remainder of Taekwoon’s blood on them, and it calms him a little. “I’m sorry if I freaked you out.”

“I was going to say that I don’t think—I mean—I don’t know if I’m ready for—” Taekwoon stops, shakes his head, and looks away. “I don’t, I don’t think I’m ready for, um sex.” He says this last part as one word, and then blushes, and Hongbin has to close his eyes so he doesn’t make some sort of noise.

“We don’t have to have um sex until you’re ready. Or ever, if that’s what you want,” Hongbin replies, leaning forward to poke him in the arm playfully. “You’ve been chaste for a couple of billion years. What’s a few more in the grand scheme of things?”

Taekwoon shakes his head. “When you frame it like that it sounds so easy… but angels do not have sexual desire. Well,” he pauses, reconsidering, “the defective ones do. But they fall. Good angels do not have sexual desire, ever. It is an entirely new sensation. Not a bad one, just… new. And sometimes too much.”

“I understand,” Hongbin says as Taekwoon takes his hand—and he does. Although he rarely thinks of it, he can remember the overwhelming sensation of _too much_ when he was newborn; every sense was so sensitive and his brain was working overtime to process it all. It’s no wonder that it was too much for Taekwoon, especially if his tattoos are extra sensitive. “I can close the wound for you, or I can just bandage it if you don’t want that. Up to you.”

“Oh?” Taekwoon touches his neck and smiles, a little bit sarcastically, when his fingers come back red. “I thought I had seen enough blood to last a lifetime… You can close the wound.”

Slowly Hongbin leans in and places his tongue flat against the wound, letting the anti-coagulants in his saliva do their job. He pulls away, but not without sneaking a kiss onto Taekwoon’s cheek first, making him blush all over again because he’s unbelievably pretty when he does.


	6. Chapter 6

They do little more than lie around in bed for the next few nights, occasionally kissing but for the most part just dozing in each other’s arms and being horrifically lazy. It’s not until they’re flicking through the news and see a story on Japan that Hongbin remembers his translation file, and how it’s overdue by days, and scrambles for his laptop in such haste he nearly drops it.

“I wish Wonshik hyung was here,” he murmurs, more to himself than to Taekwoon, who’s in the kitchen making dinner for himself.

But Taekwoon hears and sticks his head around the doorjamb, waving his wooden spoon—he’s been teaching himself cooking from youtube, apparently. “I can look over it if you want,” he says, and then blushes when Hongbin doesn’t reply. “I presume that’s what you meant—if I am overstepping—”

“No, no, that’s fine. I’m just… I didn’t know you know Japanese.”

Taekwoon smiles, big and wide and genuine. “You are forgetting what I was,” he says, and _finally_ uses the past tense.

“Don’t tell me. Angels know every language on Earth.”

“Of course not,” Taekwoon sing-songs as he disappears back into the kitchen. “It depends on the angel.”

“How many do _you_ know?”

“Probably over a hundred. I lost count millennia ago,” Taekwoon calls, and Hongbin rolls his eyes.

They sit on the floor, Taekwoon slurping down kimchi jjigae (“are you sure you can’t try it?” he says to Hongbin, “after all, it is a liquid.” But Hongbin’s stomach turns and he gags when Taekwoon brings the spoon close and so they give up) and reading over Hongbin’s file. Hongbin is content to just sit and watch him do these most mundane of tasks, looking more at home in the apartment than he’s ever looked. When he looks up and meets Hongbin’s eyes and smiles, Hongbin can’t help but smile back, because Taekwoon is so far removed from the person he used to be it is like someone else is inhibiting his body. He’s sure Taekwoon won’t agree, but if his God’s influence is what made Taekwoon what he was—well, Hongbin is glad that that connection was severed.

“This is great work,” Taekwoon says, and then shovels a spoonful of rice in his mouth, chewing thoughtfully. “It doesn’t sound awkward, or like it’s a translation. Why are you translating it?”

Hongbin pulls the laptop back to him and scans the file absentmindedly. “Vamps in Korea and vamps in Japan have an alliance, sort of. We keep each other up to date with what’s happening with our numbers and stuff. We translate each other’s newsletters.”

It had taken a lot of time for him to get comfortable using Japanese, after the circumstances of his turning—there had been a lot of guilt and a lot of anger roiling inside him for decades as he watched his country twist and change around him—but now he’s doing semi-regular translation work, it feels natural once more. It’s the language he’s most fluent in (after Korean and before English), and it feels nice to actually be able to use it, given his passion for linguistics.

Taekwoon is watching his face carefully, which makes his question not quite as apropos as it seems to be—with or without his ability to see minds through touch, he is clearly very good at reading people based on their body language alone. “How did you die, Hongbin?”

He looks at the floor, splays his hand on the carpet. He’d scrubbed and he’d scrubbed but the stain of Taekwoon’s blood hadn’t ever come out, and he makes a mental note to replace it if they are going to continue living here. “You saw that in my mind, surely.”

“I… I still want to hear it from you. I understand a false immortal’s turning is a… pivotal event.”

Hongbin snorts. “You could say that.”

“If you don’t want to talk about it—”

“It’s not that. I just… I haven’t spoken about it since Sanghyuk asked.” Taekwoon frowns, and Hongbin looks back down at his hands. “I was a member of a resistance movement against the occupied government. I was a columnist at a newspaper. We were affiliated with a church, amusingly enough. I met Wonshik hyung at the newspaper and I knew he was different, but I didn’t know how. I didn’t know what my sight meant back then. He told me what he was after we were attacked by werewolves one evening. And then… the March first movement happened.”

Taekwoon shivers, eyes wide. “Oh,” he says, hands fluttering like he wants to reach for Hongbin but is afraid to. Hongbin saves him wondering and links their hands together, holding on.

“I wanted to march with the students… Wonshik hyung warned me not to go. We had a fight. I called him a coward. Hakyeon hyung went to the north, to march with the gisaeng, and I… it was awful, Taekwoon.” He closes his eyes, trying to remember. “The police were… everywhere. I saw my friends… beaten in the streets. I ran to the church. I thought I’d be safe hiding in the basement—others from the newspaper had the same idea. We sat there in the dark whispering and terrified, and then the fire started. The police… had seen us come in. They barred the doors and locked us in and set us on fire. And then Wonshik hyung came.”

“I’m sorry,” Taekwoon whispers, giving Hongbin’s hand a gentle squeeze. “It seems that… false immortals are born in fire and blood.”

 _Not always_ , Hongbin thinks, remembering that Sanghyuk was going to ask Hakyeon to turn him—a peaceful, gentle event, rather one marred by blood and death and fear and desperation. But he looks at Taekwoon, who is staring back at him so earnestly, and can’t bring himself to say the words. Taekwoon’s actions brought he and Sanghyuk together, but at what cost? Sanghyuk’s sanity? Hongbin thinks that it might not be worth it.

“At least I know my maker,” he says. “Wonshik hyung never knew his and Hakyeon hyung’s was horrible, from what I’ve heard. So. It could be worse.”

Except it is worse, because his own maker wants nothing to do with him, and the bond between them is getting harder and harder to find each day; maybe it will wither and die entirely, a concept that Hongbin does not even want to consider. Taekwoon picks up on his sadness and pulls him in for a gentle hug, nuzzling at Hongbin’s neck to press a kiss there. “I am sorry. I didn’t mean to make you sad.”

“I know you didn’t,” Hongbin murmurs, and sits up to kiss Taekwoon, slow and lingering. “It’ll be dawn soon. Let me send this and let’s head to bed?”

The weird melancholy mood has settled in between them as Hongbin does exactly that, hiding under the blankets as Taekwoon potters about the kitchen, cleaning up. When he joins Hongbin in bed, Hongbin rolls over and splays a hand on his chest. “I need you to tell me something.”

“Anything.”

“Why were you acting like an idiot?” Taekwoon’s eyes widen, but Hongbin doesn’t let him off that easily. “I mean, a few weeks ago you couldn’t even use the bus, and now you’re cooking? Watching youtube? I’m not dumb. Why were you doing it?”

He buries his head in the pillow and mumbles something, and then starts whining when Hongbin easily yanks the pillow away and rolls him over so he’s on his back. “I said—I said I was worried you were going to leave. So. I thought I would act like a fool and you would have to stay to take care of me.”

Something lurches in Hongbin’s chest at that, something soft and lovely, and he grips Taekwoon’s chin to force him to hold his gaze. “I’m not going anywhere,” he says, and he means it. “Not now.”

To underscore his words, he leans down and kisses Taekwoon fiercely, to seal his promise and ratify it as truth—they are tied together in a way he could never have anticipated, but sometimes, like now, it is hard to find where Taekwoon ends and where he begins.

//

Hongbin comes home a few nights later to find Taekwoon curled up on the sofa bed, a scrunched wad of toilet paper in his hands, and tears streaking down his face. His first instinct is to drop the bags he’s holding and they hit the floor with a sickening _squish_ sound. “Are you alright?”

Taekwoon looks up at him, sniffs, points at the television. “This film—it’s so romantic.”

“What—” Hongbin blinks at the television as a man and a woman embrace in the pouring rain and kiss with passion that would leave him breathless if he cared about mortal movies. “Is this _The Notebook_? Are you really crying over _The Notebook_?”

Years ago Sanghyuk had made him watch it and while he’d cried his eyes out—he’s a romantic at heart, although he doesn’t admit it very often—Hongbin had been, and still is, unmoved. “Yes,” Taekwoon sniffs, and turns back to watch.

Hongbin just rolls his arms as he picks up the bags again. Thankfully none of the blood bags inside have broken, and he deposits all but one into the freezer, leaving the last to shove in the microwave. He hates raiding, would much rather feed on live humans, but he doesn’t want to feed on anyone except Taekwoon and they are steering clear of that, for obvious reasons, so this is the only other option. He’s only raided blood banks and hospitals a few times; most of the time Wonshik does it, and Hongbin avoids joining him.

He joins Taekwoon on the sofa with the warm blood bag in his hands. Taekwoon wrinkles his nose but doesn’t complain; he’s transfixed, drawn into this mortal love story that Hongbin doesn’t quite understand. When the movie is finished he’s crying again, and Hongbin sighs and pulls him close, lets Taekwoon cry into his chest. “Sometimes I don’t even think you’re the same person,” he murmurs, stroking Taekwoon’s hair. “You are so different from how you used to be.”

Taekwoon cries even harder, and it’s here that Hongbin starts to get alarmed. “Hey. Taekwoon,” he says, gripping Taekwoon’s chin, forcing him to meet his eyes. “What’s wrong?”

“She _forgot_ him,” Taekwoon hiccups, looking so miserable that Hongbin’s heart lurches. The human woman—Allie, if he remembers correctly—did end up forgetting Noah in the end, thanks to one of many numerous mortal diseases that are particularly prevalent among the elderly. “She forgot him and—and I think I just realised that could happen to me. I could forget you. I could get sick and die… Humans are so fragile, Hongbin, how am I going to—” he shudders, blinks, and even with tears tracking down his cheeks, even with his face all red, Hongbin marvels at how beautiful he is. “I do not want to die anymore,” he whispers, and runs his fingers over Hongbin’s lips. “I do not want to leave you.”

And there it is, out in the open, the thing that Hongbin has been avoiding thinking about because—because he is not used to people dying. Immortals don’t die. His friends never die, they are eternal and their love is eternal, and now he is faced with a love that is finite he finds he is torn asunder.

“I can—I can turn you,” he whispers, his thumb stroking along Taekwoon’s cheekbone. “I know you don’t—but if you’d just think about it.”

A great shudder goes through Taekwoon’s body, and he closes his eyes. “Please do not ask that of me,” he says, and his voice is suddenly hoarse, desperate. “I made my mind up a long time ago that I would die when the universe decided I was to die and if you place that choice in front of me I am not sure I will have the strength to say no—”

But Hongbin is selfish, he know’s he’s selfish, and he shifts a little closer. “Just think about it—”

 _“Please,”_ Taekwoon sobs. “You are making this more difficult than it has to be.”

It’s already the most difficult, complicated, fucked-up situation Hongbin has been in, and a knife slides its way through his ribs gently as he closes his mouth, resigned. If Taekwoon doesn’t consent to being turned, Hongbin won’t force him; he knows all too well what a new life is like when forced upon someone. He has already done that to Taekwoon once. He won’t take away his agency again. There’s no guarantee it would even work, what with Taekwoon’s tattoos barring his power and keeping it from destroying him, but he wishes—he wishes for an alternate universe where they could at least try, where they could just be like this without all the fucked-up shit surrounding them.

He does not even want to think about what the others would say if they saw him here. It hurts to even consider.

“Then we will just make the most of the time we have,” he whispers, and then kisses Taekwoon on the forehead softly. “Kiss in the rain. Go on dates. I will build you a house, if you like.”

This, at least, makes Taekwoon smile. “With wood? That is asking to get staked.”

“Well, maybe I’ll hire someone to do it. But the point is, we have time. I know it doesn’t feel like it to you, but a human life passes slowly to the human living it. We’ll just take it one day at a time.”

Taekwoon closes his eyes and says nothing more, and Hongbin knows what he’s thinking. One day at a time is not good enough when there’s a countdown, the end point of which is unknown. But it’s all they have, and as Hongbin lies there and closes his eyes he makes a promise to himself, consequences be damned—he is going to make the most of the time they have left, because what has developed between them has overtaken and enveloped them both, and now they are woven into something bigger than the both of them.

It’s the most honest he’s been with his intentions for months, and it feels freeing.

//

They go to the movies and Hongbin laughs as Taekwoon eats a whole bucket of popcorn in one sitting, nearly spilling it all over himself at the jumpscares (“you were ten times more scary than that when you were an angel,” Hongbin tells him as they leave the theatre, and Taekwoon looks very smug indeed even though they both know he shouldn’t really).

They drive to the beach again, lie in the sand, half in the water, and talk for hours until dawn threatens. Hongbin still can’t believe he got to experience the sun’s light again. It feels like a dream, almost; the entire past six months has felt like a dream. He still can barely tell the difference between awake and asleep. His steps are light and the hours slip away from them like water; it’s how he was in the early days, when the love between he and Sanghyuk was still new and exciting—rather than something comforting and homely, as it became as the years passed—and even though he tries to tamp down his guilt, it is always nagging at him, at the back of his mind.

They hike up a mountain, for no other reason than they can, and the whole way up Taekwoon huffs and puffs and whines and complains (“I cannot believe how much I miss being able to travel anywhere in the blink of an eye,” he says between gasps, doubled over, “and I cannot believe how useless mortal bodies are”) but shuts up the moment they reach the summit. The city is spread out below them, the twinkling lights utterly mesmerising, and they stand there in silence with their arms wrapped around each other, just looking.

They go to noraebang, which Taekwoon finds great fun—he can actually sing amazingly, to Hongbin’s surprise—and then clubbing. Hongbin ends up feeding on someone and Taekwoon just raises an eyebrow and points at his chin. “You have a bit of blood there,” he says, amused, and then flits away through the crowd. Hongbin watches him go with a smile.

Hongbin makes the mistake of buying an xbox, since he misses his but doesn’t dare to go back to the apartment to get it—he struggles to call it home, now—and Taekwoon quickly becomes addicted. He stays up all day playing GTA and Viva Pinata, which makes Hongbin’s head spin even more, because only Taekwoon could switch from those two as fast as he does. He even starts playing online, which amuses him (“I never knew mortal children could be so foul,” he says with a wry smile one evening when another stream of curses erupts through the speakers) but mainly annoys Hongbin because he’s always trying to translate when Taekwoon’s playing.

They do stupid couple things like getting chicken and beer at the river, and even though it’s probably too cold for it now—Taekwoon’s rugged up in a puffy jacket and gloves and a beanie, and keeps complaining about how he’s not used to actually feeling the cold—they lie down on the grass and make out like teenagers, not caring who sees. On the subway on the way back Taekwoon sets a photo of he and Hongbin as his phone wallpaper, and then at Hongbin’s suggestion makes an instagram and starts posting photos immediately. Hongbin sits on the train, digging his nails into the thin skin of his wrist to ground himself, marvelling at how fast his life has changed and how someone can have the whole world and still feel horrifically empty inside.

They visit the palace on a moonlight tour, because neither of them have done proper touristy things even though they’ve lived here their entire lives—well, Taekwoon probably spent a lot of time in Heaven, but Hongbin’s avoiding asking about that—and they think it will be fun. And it kind of is, in a way, even though Hongbin gets sad at the very obvious passage of time.

“I was a prince, once,” Taekwoon says as they’re wandering through the grounds. It comes out of nowhere and Hongbin’s so stupefied he trips over the uneven paving stones and goes sprawling on the ground.

“You what?” he splutters, picking himself up and shoving Taekwoon, who’s laughing so hard he’s wheezing. “Taekwoon, you can’t just say shit like that—”

“I _was_ ,” Taekwoon replies, wiping his eyes and dodging Hongbin’s playful shove. “Jaehwan was at court, pretending to be a minister. I suppose he was a minister, for a while. But I didn’t really understand why he was doing it. So I became a prince, and then a King. Only for a short while.”

“You’re joking,” Hongbin says, but Taekwoon’s expression makes him realise he’s not joking at all. “What—when was this? I don’t remember a King Taekwoon, ever.”

At this Taekwoon smiles, but it’s pained, and he turns to look at the palace buildings behind him. “My name was scrubbed from the history books,” he murmurs, almost to himself. “They said I was mad. I certainly was. As you know, I stopped at nothing to get to Jaehwan in those days, including sending soldiers to him. To the mortals of the court it looked like I had lost my mind and had turned on my own ministers. I was deposed and ‘killed’,” he says with air quotes, “and my short reign was over before it had really begun.”

Hongbin is left in stunned silence for a while as they walk, their feet crunching over the gravel, and finds he doesn’t even know what to think. It’s more evidence of Taekwoon’s sins, but then, he doesn’t need any more evidence of that. It is more important that he never knew—he never knew, and how many more things does he not know about Taekwoon? A lifetime’s worth, certainly, and then shakes his head as soon as he thinks it. A million lifetimes’ worth of things he doesn’t and probably will never know, and yet Taekwoon has looked through his whole head and has seen to the core of him.

They will never, ever be on even footing, and he’s left breathless at that realisation, even as he also realises it’s coming too late.

“When?” he asks, and Taekwoon turns to him, surprised. “When did you… rule?”

Taekwoon screws up his face, thinking. “Let me see… I was succeeded by Injo… I believe I ruled from 1620 to 1621.”

Hongbin laughs. He can’t help it. It’s not a laugh of joy, either, more one of disbelief, and he shrugs off Taekwoon’s touch when he reaches for him. “Hakyeon was summoned to court in 1625,” he replies, and can’t meet Taekwoon’s eyes. “All the universe and all the time in the world and—and all these coincidences.”

“It makes no sense to me either, vampire,” Taekwoon sighs. “I used to believe in fate at God’s hands, but now I am unsure.”

The fact that Taekwoon, too, is lost at sea is a small comfort, and Hongbin reaches for his hand as they turn and head home together.

//

This is how they fall in love—in increments, creeping up on them so slowly they don’t realise it until it’s too late, the memories they’ve made becoming something new in the wake of what they have become now. It’s the way Taekwoon leans his head on Hongbin’s shoulder on the bus one evening and then promptly falls asleep. It’s the way he accepts Hongbin’s touches on his scars, trembling at first but soon relaxing into it, sighing happily. It’s the way Hongbin picks Taekwoon up and carries him to bed when he’s fallen asleep playing xbox. It’s the way how Taekwoon always wakes him up with a cup of coffee and a kiss, and it’s how he watches Hongbin when he thinks Hongbin’s not looking, and how Hongbin can hear him praying sometimes. It’s the way they both know they don’t deserve what they have, which only makes them cling harder. It’s the guilt and the sadness and the joy and the desire and the desperation and the way they both run from their past together, and it’s everything and it’s nothing, and it is this:

The simple fact of Taekwoon sleeping in Hongbin’s arms, peaceful and content and very much alive.

//

Usually Hongbin does his best to tune out Taekwoon’s heartbeat. It helps if he’s well-fed, and it helps if he’s distracted, and as long as he’s not thirsty the sound of it is not unbearable and is instead somewhat of a comfort.

Tonight, though, is different. He doesn’t even realise how thirsty he has allowed himself to get until Taekwoon burns his hand on a pot that he’s taking off the stove, his heart rate spiking as he yelps and drops the pan on the floor, and Hongbin’s fangs pop out and his head whips around and he’s on his feet before he’s even aware of what’s going on.

“You’re an idiot,” he scolds, running Taekwoon’s hand under cold water for him in the bathroom, although there’s no weight to it. “It’s only a first degree burn. It’ll sting for an hour or so and then you’ll be fine.”

Taekwoon hasn’t missed a thing—neither his fangs flashing behind his lips as he talks or the slight lisp he still has when his fangs are out—and so when Hongbin turns to go, grabs his hand and pulls him back. “You can feed from me,” he says quietly, his face an expressionless mask.

Hongbin still hesitates, even though the offer makes his vision swim slightly. They have been avoiding doing that for obvious reasons; when there’s biting involved it’s hard to keep their hands off each other, and so all they’ve done in the past month or so is over-the-clothes stuff. Which Hongbin doesn’t mind, not at all, but he doesn’t want to push Taekwoon into anything he doesn’t want to do and so hasn’t broached the topic.

“I don’t have to.” He pulls his hand free but doesn’t move, the moment somehow hanging heavy between them, even in this shitty little bathroom that still somehow feels like a haven. “I mean, I know it can make you overwhelmed—”

“I want you to,” Taekwoon replies, and silences him in one fell swoop. He can’t move, can hardly breathe, as Taekwoon steps closer, running his hand along his cheek to rest on the side of his neck, over where his pulse would be racing if he had one. “I am ready.”

They move to the bed, the both of them suddenly hopelessly awkward, unable to look each other in the eye. Hongbin feels like a virgin again and the thought amuses him so much he laughs, making Taekwoon glare at him. “Sorry. It’s just… been a while since I felt like this.”

“Felt like what?”

“Um.” His mouth is suddenly dry as he looks at Taekwoon and swallows. “Nervous? I guess?”

Taekwoon raises an eyebrow and moves a little closer, reaching for Hongbin’s hand. The sound of his heart—pounding out of his chest, faster than Hongbin’s heard it in a while—is driving him mad, but he doesn’t allow himself to move. “It is just biting,” he teases, bringing Hongbin’s wrist to his lips and kissing it before he bites it, gently, not even breaking the skin. “You have done that plenty of times before.”

“I suppose I have,” Hongbin says, leaning in to kiss Taekwoon.

They are in no hurry and kiss lazily and carelessly. At one point Taekwoon climbs into his lap and Hongbin’s hands fall on his hips, holding him there, and they kiss and kiss until they’re both hard and shuddering from withheld desire. The urge to bite is starting to overwhelm Hongbin, and he doesn’t know how long he’s going to last. “I have an idea,” he gasps, pulling away from Taekwoon slightly. “And you can say no.”

“What is it?”

Slowly, Hongbin traces a path up the inside of Taekwoon’s thigh with his fingertips. The material of the sweatpants Taekwoon is wearing is thin, and he shivers at the touch, his pupils dilating as Hongbin watches. “There is an artery here,” he whispers, mouth watering at just the thought of it. “Because of where it is located, it’s the most intimate place I can bite you.”

Taekwoon’s breath hitches. “Please,” he says, and Hongbin can hear a note of desperation in his voice.

They strip each other, taking their time. Hongbin’s seen Taekwoon shirtless plenty of times, but never has it seemed holy, like now; lit only by the lamps in the corners of the room, Taekwoon seems almost intangible, like he’s not really here. He makes the most beautiful whimpers when Hongbin runs his fingers over his tattoos gently, his fingers pulling at Hongbin’s pants impatiently, and when they’re both finally naked they just sit there and take each other in. Taekwoon’s hair is hanging in his face, and he’s curled over like he’s self-conscious of his body, but there’s a smile on his face and it makes Hongbin’s heart soar.

“You’re so beautiful,” Taekwoon says, scooting backwards as Hongbin clambers over him to kiss him, making him arch up. “You’re so—”

A flash of how he looked that day in the mirror, in the sun, returns to him, and he smiles—never before has he thought himself beautiful but for a few moments with Taekwoon he was. “You should see yourself,” he mutters, because Taekwoon should. Even without his wings, or his fangs or his eyes or his power wreathing him, he still looks like a god, like he could click his fingers and the world would fall to his feet. Hongbin certainly would.

He kisses his way back down Taekwoon’s body slowly, planting one gentle kiss directly on one of his rib tattoos before moving swiftly on lest he get overwhelmed again. He doesn’t even touch Taekwoon’s cock, hard and with a drop of precome swelling at the tip; his mind is on something else entirely, and Taekwoon spreads his legs eagerly when Hongbin noses at his thigh. He has no shame, Hongbin realises, looking back up at him as he splays his tongue on the sensitive skin on the inside of Taekwoon’s thigh. And why should he?

And still and still he waits for consent again, because he knows they are about to leap into the void together. Whatever happens after this will bond them together in a way he can’t anticipate, not when his brain is so fogged with bloodlust he can barely move, but the rational part of him left knows that they cannot go back, not after this.

Taekwoon runs his fingers through Hongbin’s hair, pushing it away from his face. “Please,” he begs, and Hongbin cannot refuse.

He sinks his fangs in deep, and Taekwoon jerks and hisses but doesn’t pull away. Hongbin doesn’t glamour the pain away; he doesn’t have to, because after a few moments the lust hits Taekwoon and hits him hard, and his hand in Hongbin’s hair curls into a claw, pressing his head inward. Hongbin obliges the wordless command and drinks and drinks and drinks, closing his eyes and letting Taekwoon’s essence flow over his tongue and down his throat, warm and salty and laced with that lavender that’s like a drug to him, now. His arm wraps around Taekwoon’s thigh and when their eyes meet a jolt of something goes through him and—and he _knows_.

“Don’t stop,” Taekwoon gasps as Hongbin pulls away, licking the wound to close it. “Hongbin, please don’t stop.”

Hongbin needs to say it, he needs to say it or else he’s going to go mad, and so he crawls his way up Taekwoon’s body and kisses him, lips still bloody, letting Taekwoon taste himself. He cradles Taekwoon’s head in his hands and kisses him like it’s the last time, fierce heat and raw, beating passion. “I love you,” he breathes, resting his forehead against Taekwoon’s.

“Oh.” Taekwoon’s chest heaves and his fingers tighten on Hongbin’s waist, his fingernails digging in painfully, on the verge of drawing blood. “Oh—I—Hongbin, you shouldn’t.”

“Probably not. But I do. And I wouldn’t change a thing.”

Taekwoon smiles. There’s sadness there, in his smile, and Hongbin knows why but he is refusing to think of it. “I love you too, Hongbin,” he says, and Hongbin swears, he swears his heart starts beating again.

This time when they kiss it’s with urgency, although borne of what, Hongbin can’t tell. It’s somewhat frantic and frenzied and when Taekwoon reaches down between them and tentatively wraps his hand around Hongbin’s cock, he hisses at the sensation. He doesn’t even resist when Taekwoon pushes at him so he’s on his back and then settles himself on Hongbin’s hips to wrap one hand around both their cocks, jerking them off simultaneously, and the sight of that is far too much and he has to look at the ceiling so he doesn’t come from it.

“I want you to fuck me,” Taekwoon murmurs, and when Hongbin’s head snaps up in alarm, he grins mischievously. “What?”

“Where the hell did you learn that?”

“I’ve been doing research—”

Taekwoon mewls as Hongbin grabs him by the waist and flips them so he’s the one on his back, Hongbin looming above him. “You’ve been— _research?_ Have you been watching porn? Taekwoon—”

“They were rather amusing. I don’t quite understand why mortals seem to enjoy sex in hospitals or with police officers—”

Hongbin cuts him off with a kiss, because he’s torn between laughing and crying. “Porn isn’t the best place to get ideas about sex, you know,” he says, pulling back and glancing between Taekwoon’s eyes and his lips, already kiss-swollen.

“Probably not. But I was curious and—and I didn’t want to ask you.” He’s blushing, Hongbin realises, and the sight is sweet, if a little incongruous given what they’re talking about. “So will you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Fuck me.”

Rolling his eyes, Hongbin sits up and runs a hand through his hair. “I mean—I’m not gonna say no—but you can’t just start with fucking someone, Taekwoon. You have to build up to it.”

“So show me,” Taekwoon breathes, pulling Hongbin back in, and how can Hongbin say no to that?

Hongbin splays him out on his back and kisses every part of him except his cock, letting him whine until he’s begging to be touched, and when he finally gives in and licks up the underside of Taekwoon’s cock he curls up off the bed so violently in relief he nearly knees Hongbin in the head. “Oh, please, don’t tease me—” he gasps, so Hongbin obliges, retracting his fangs and taking all of Taekwoon in his mouth. “Hongbin—I’m going to—”

He’s writhing and bucking his hips and so Hongbin reaches for his hand and laces their fingers together as he comes, replacing his mouth with his hand at the last second because he wants to see. Taekwoon’s come stripes up his chest and belly and he goes completely silent, heart thundering, neck straining, hair mussed and hand clinging onto Hongbin’s for dear life as his orgasm rips through him. It’s fucking beautiful and almost poetic, and when he starts breathing again Hongbin is there to kiss him through the aftershocks, watching him come back to himself. “I love you,” is the first thing Taekwoon says after, and touches Hongbin’s face, ardent and reverent.

“I love you too.”

“That was—” he shudders. “I do not have—I don’t know how to describe it. I want more. I want _you_.”

Hongbin hates to be the one to break the news of refractory periods to Taekwoon, so instead he just captures Taekwoon’s hand and kisses every one of his fingers. “We have time. Let me get you a towel.”

But Taekwoon doesn’t even let him get off the bed. With surprising strength he shoves Hongbin so he’s sitting up against the back of the sofa bed, and then spreads Hongbin’s legs; Hongbin obliges eagerly. Like this he is helpless to do anything but watch as Taekwoon looks up at him and then sinks his mouth over the head of Hongbin’s cock, using his hand as well, and soon Hongbin is on-edge and jittery. It’s been months and months since he last came—he doesn’t really have much desire to jerk off normally and even if he did it would be nigh on impossible with Taekwoon around all the time—and he’s been turned on since they started, so he doesn’t bother to feel embarrassed as soon he’s undone, the fingers of one hand twisting in the sheets, the other resting on Taekwoon’s head. “I’m gonna come,” he gasps.

He expects Taekwoon to pull away, but instead he just closes his eyes and keeps sucking Hongbin off as he comes, giving him not the slightest second of relief. He closes his eyes and holds on, giving in to the pleasure and letting it roll through him, his mind a barrage of nothing but _Taekwoon Taekwoon Taekwoon Taekwoon Taekwoon._ When he opens his eyes again Taekwoon pulls away, leaving Hongbin’s cock damp and still-twitching, and swallows, holding Hongbin’s gaze the entire time. It’s filthy, it’s absolutely obscene, and Hongbin can’t help himself. He moans quietly.

“Was that alright?” Taekwoon asks, lying down next to Hongbin and reaching for his hand. “I’m sorry if I was bad—”

“Hey.” Hongbin rolls so he’s on his side and realises he’s still breathless as he cups Taekwoon’s cheek. “It was amazing. Fucking amazing. You weren’t bad at all.”

Taekwoon breathes a sigh of relief and closes his eyes, and Hongbin can tell what he’s thinking—it’s hard to live up to the standard of an incubus. But he’s not filling Sanghyuk’s shoes, and Hongbin doesn’t want him to, so he just presses a gentle kiss to Taekwoon’s temple and gets up to fetch a washcloth. Taekwoon stirs as Hongbin starts cleaning his cum off him, wiping at his chest and belly, and makes a soft, contented noise.

“Tired?”

“No,” he says, and then shrugs upon seeing Hongbin’s smirk. “Maybe a little bit. But I still want you.”

Instead of replying, Hongbin folds up the washcloth neatly and places it on the arm of the sofa, and then trails a hand down Taekwoon’s chest to rest on his tattoos. He notes how Taekwoon’s heartbeat starts increasing at the touch, and, experimenting, digs his fingernails in ever-so-slightly.

Taekwoon jerks like he’s been electrocuted, hands finding Hongbin and clawing at his back to drag him closer. They kiss, feverish, and he whines and sobs when Hongbin digs his nails in harder. “Oh, God,” he moans, “please don’t stop—Hongbin I want you—”

They’re both hard again, Hongbin realises faintly, but he doesn’t move. Taekwoon is impossibly exquisite like this, straining into the touch that is making his heart race. _What does it feel like?_ Hongbin thinks, and for a second he wishes this was before and Taekwoon could show him. But it’s not before, it’s now, and they are both being slowly pulled apart by desire so he spreads Taekwoon’s legs and reaches for the lube that he’d brought with him when he brought the washcloth.

“Can I finger you?” he asks, wrapping his now-slick hand around Taekwoon’s cock, stroking him into full hardness.

Taekwoon nods, so Hongbin trails his hand down to Taekwoon’s entrance, waiting until he relaxes to push a finger inside of him slowly. They breathe together and Hongbin waits for a few seconds before he starts to move, fingering Taekwoon, unhurried and nonchalant. He is beautiful. They are beautiful, he realises as he looks down at his hands, one splayed on the inside of Taekwoon’s thigh—mottled with bruises just beginning to form from the bite—and the other moving in and out of Taekwoon. He bides his time, and he waits until Taekwoon starts jerking from the teasing sensation, and then adds another finger.

It is not until he has three fingers fucking into Taekwoon with ease, and Taekwoon’s thighs are trembling and his cock is leaking precome, that he pulls his hand away, leaving Taekwoon to whimper at the sudden loss of sensation.

It hits him at once, what they’re about to do, and still he hesitates. “Are you sure you want to do this? We can stop if it’s too much.”

“It’s not too much,” Taekwoon gasps, “Hongbin, it’s not enough.”

Hongbin understands, and leans forward, his cock pressing up against Taekwoon’s entrance. Still he waits for Taekwoon to nod and then pushes into him haltingly, thighs braced, entire body as taut as a bowstring—because oh, God, they fit together better than he ever could have imagined, and Taekwoon wraps his legs around Hongbin’s waist as he sinks into him. He never—he never could have—he didn’t expect this, he didn’t expect it to be Taekwoon, he never thought it could be Taekwoon.

They are a cacophony of lines and angles, of moans and halting sounds, that somehow works. Taekwoon’s hot and tight around him and he’s so good, he’s tilting his neck to the side and saying _please_ in a way where he gets cut off as Hongbin thrusts, so Hongbin bites him. Slick heat and salt fill him, surround and envelop him, and now he understands why there’s love in Taekwoon’s blood. It is love for him and love for them and he would be lost without it, so he drinks and he fucks into Taekwoon and he nearly cries when Taekwoon’s arms come around him and hold him close. He realises, only vaguely, that Taekwoon is saying his name over and over again: _Hongbin Hongbin Hongbin_ , with the same deference as the way he prays. He comes first, not caring that he can’t last long in the face of that, and Taekwoon gasps and shudders at the feeling of Hongbin coming inside him and it is not long before his orgasm hits him as well. _Mine_ , Hongbin thinks, collapsing forward onto Taekwoon’s chest. _Mine_.

They fall asleep like that, Hongbin having gone soft inside Taekwoon, and when they wake in the evening they do it all over again.

//

Hongbin knows all too well that repressing memories, and the emotions that come along with them, only works for a short while, and for that short while all is blissful. He and Taekwoon can’t keep their hands off each other; it’s like a dam has broken, and they’re letting out all they have been repressing for what seems like a lifetime but is really only months. But it’s only days before the guilt starts creeping in whenever he touches Taekwoon, and it gradually gets worse until he is choked by it. Sanghyuk broke up with him that day he brought Taekwoon to Hakyeon’s apartment. He made that pretty clear. But just because Hongbin isn’t cheating doesn’t mean he has nothing to feel guilty about, and the shame gnaws at his bones and worms its way into his heart until he can barely speak to Taekwoon without being overwhelmed by it all.

What has he _done?_

How can he even begin fixing this?

It’s with an anxious heart that he crawls out of bed the moment the sun sets one evening, not allowing himself to glance down at Taekwoon because if he does his motivation for this fool’s errand will evaporate. He gets dressed in silence and creeps out the door, hoping, although hoping for what he doesn’t know. He just knows that he can’t—he can’t live with this guilt any longer, even though he knows it’s awful of him. Maybe he should keep it to himself.

But then, what had Sanghyuk said? _This thing won’t work unless there’s honesty between us._

Honesty it is.

He spends the subway ride back home—even though the thought is funny to him, now—fidgeting nervously, wondering whether he should text Sanghyuk and ask if he’s at the apartment. In the end he doesn’t, although by the time he’s standing in front of the door, he’s wondering if maybe he should. There’s heartbeats in there, Sanghyuk’s and Hakyeon’s and what must be Jaehwan’s, and his hand trembles as he holds it out in front of him, daring himself to reach for the lock and somehow being unable to.

In the end, he doesn’t have to. He hears the approach of feet and then the door swings open to reveal Hakyeon, who’s so startled he jumps and yelps. “What the fuck—” he starts, and then his features harden. “Hongbin.”

He’d thought he was strong enough to see Sanghyuk again, but he had not banked on this. Hakyeon is his maker in all but name, and he swears his knees actually go weak at the sight of him—he looks just the same as he always does, except wearing an ugly expression of cool indifference that splits Hongbin open to see. “Hakyeon,” he croaks, hand on his chest as if he’s trying to hold himself together. There’s a thousand things he wants to say but he doesn’t even know where to begin. “I—”

“Don’t,” Hakyeon sighs, and shoulders his way out and down the hall.

Their hands brush accidentally and he’s so warm that Hongbin wants to reach for him, seeking comfort that he hasn’t craved for decades, but he’s gone before Hongbin can say a word. He can only blearily focus on Jaehwan, who offers him a small smile before leaning in to whisper something in Hongbin’s ear.

His heart is in his throat as Jaehwan gives him a final pat on the shoulder before following Hakyeon down the hall, and then they’re gone and it’s just the two of them, him and Sanghyuk—and Sanghyuk has always been good at reading him, at pulling him apart, and he must glean what has happened from Hongbin’s face alone and he goes deathly pale.

“No,” he murmurs, backing away and shaking his head. “No, no, no, you can’t, no—”

His first instinct is to step into the apartment to reach for Sanghyuk and comfort him. He only takes one step forward, though, before he slams into an invisible and impassable barrier, unable to move forward even a millimetre, and what Sanghyuk’s done makes him hiss. “You took back my invitation?”

He doesn’t even know how this is possible; his name is on the deed for this apartment, as is Sanghyuk’s. But apparently that doesn’t matter to his idiotic vampire magic. He’s stuck here, unable to move forward and unwilling to move back, helpless to watch as Sanghyuk starts crying. “I didn’t—I don’t know—I was angry and—”

“Let me in,” Hongbin pleads, hating that he has to beg for entry into his own fucking house, hating his stupid vampire magic and hating every single fucking caveat it comes with, and for what? “Sanghyuk, please.”

For a moment he thinks he’s going to have to resort to glamouring Sanghyuk, if he even had the strength to. But then Sanghyuk turns away and hiccups, “You can come in,” and the barrier disappears.

Hongbin catches him before he hits the floor. He’s sobbing so hard that Hongbin starts crying too, because Sanghyuk’s pain is his pain, always has been. “Sanghyukkie,” he murmurs, and pulls Sanghyuk onto his lap, wrapping his arms around him and holding him close. “My Sanghyuk.”

“What have you _done?”_ Sanghyuk gets out around his sobs, clinging onto Hongbin, a lifeline. “You—you love him, don’t you?”

He can’t deny it. He can’t confirm it, either, because he is a coward and his tongue won’t form the words. “Sanghyuk—”

Sanghyuk pulls back, shudders running through his entire body, and there’s an ancient sadness in his eyes that doesn’t belong there. “Don’t lie to me,” he says, and Hongbin is paralysed with indecision. “Don’t lie to me—don’t. You love him, don’t you?”

“Yes,” he says, simply because he can’t, won’t lie.

“Did you—are you—have you fucked him?”

Oh, he can’t say it, he can’t. He can’t drive that stake further into Sanghyuk’s heart. But he must, and he hates himself for it.“Yes.”

A whimper escapes Sanghyuk, small and quiet, and he closes his eyes and sags into Hongbin’s chest. “I don’t know—I don’t… fuck, Hongbin,” he stammers.

They sit there for what feels like hours, Hongbin rocking Sanghyuk gently in his arms as they both cry, knowing that something has died between them and that from here on out things will never quite be the same.

//

_Give it time._

Jaehwan’s words to him echo around his head as he sits on the subway home—his real home, now—shellshocked beyond belief.

_Give it time. They will come round, I promise you._

But the one thing that he and Taekwoon don’t have, the one thing they can never have, is the luxury of time.

//

The moment he gets home he walks right past Taekwoon without even saying hello and slams the bathroom door shut behind him. His hands clench on the porcelain of the sink and oxygen is suddenly so hard to find, because maybe this would be easier if he didn’t love Sanghyuk, and he hates himself for even thinking that. He loves Sanghyuk. He loves Taekwoon. He loves them both, and it seems horribly unfair in the wake of all that has happened. It’s not even that he found solace in Taekwoon’s arms because he turned from Sanghyuk. He never would have chosen this, to have fallen for Sanghyuk’s murderer. He never would have sat down and looked at the path his life was going to take and decided to forge ahead the way he did.

But now he is here, he cannot find the strength to regret it.

He’d replaced the mirror after Taekwoon’d smashed it, but right now the sight of his reflection—pale, red eyes, fangs, all he has come to accept about himself but all that which he cannot love—is too much. He reaches out and plucks it off the wall and almost lovingly smashes it over his knee, clinging onto the pieces that remain in his hands as they slice through his flesh, grounding him. _Give it time._ He doesn’t have any time to give.

Taekwoon bursts in and hovers in the doorway for a long moment, hands fluttering with indecision. “Hongbin! What have you—”

He lets the shards fall out of his hands and watches as the wounds close instantly. “Sorry.”

But Taekwoon isn’t taking sorry for an answer. He guides Hongbin out of the bathroom and sits him down on the sofa bed, disappearing to bang around in the kitchen and returning to press a mug of something into Hongbin’s hands. The helpless taking care of the helpless, the blind leading the blind, Hongbin thinks, and nearly laughs.

He doesn’t laugh when he takes a swig of what’s in the mug and realises it’s whisky, though. “Taekwoon!” he splutters, swallowing it and coughing only because he wasn’t expecting it. “What the hell—”

“I thought it would help you become lucid again.” Taekwoon sits next to him, deliberately keeping a respectable distance between them. “Where did you go?”

He slams back all that’s in the mug and sighs, looking at the wall, refusing to meet Taekwoon’s eyes. “I told Sanghyuk about us.”

“Oh.” Out of the corner of his eye, Hongbin can see Taekwoon twisting his hands in his lap. “I… take it did not go well.”

Hongbin doesn’t say anything for a long time. He’s digesting his thoughts, trying to sort them out. There’s something that has been niggling at him for weeks, now, building and building until trying to keep it in is too much. He turns so he’s facing Taekwoon, and the expression on his face must be something else entirely because Taekwoon pales. “Why did you do it?”

“Ah, Hongbin.” Taekwoon smiles sadly and shakes his head. “I have done a lot of things over the course of my wretched life. You must be more specific.”

“Why did you kill Sanghyuk?”

It’s clearly a question he’s been expecting, because he doesn’t startle. He just closes his eyes and swallows, and Hongbin avoids glancing at his neck, at his pulse. “I wish you had asked me before, so I could show you. My words are likely to be inadequate.”

“Try.”

Taekwoon goes into the kitchen and returns with the bottle of whisky and takes a long, long swig. “Alright,” he murmurs, and settles himself down. “Alright.”

“I don’t think I have to describe to you my hatred for Jaehwan.” Hongbin shakes his head, so Taekwoon nods. “It was part of my soul. Every beat of my heart was dedicated to erasing his existence. Over the course of a millennia I would do whatever I could to get to him, to drag him down. I would send humans after him. I would use other false immortals. I had no qualms and I did not care. Nothing in this universe mattered except for killing him.

“I believe it was around three hundred years ago, now, or something like that. We had battled for days. We were both so exhausted we could barely fly. I broke his wing and, in retaliation, he ran me through with his sword. If I did not get to Heaven immediately I would have died and… and he was in immense pain.” A shudder runs through Taekwoon’s body, and Hongbin aches to hold him, although he doesn’t move. “A wing… is the most sacred part of the body. To touch it is taboo. To injure it, a crime worth killing for. I was delirious and I was losing blood and for the first time in my life I was awfully frightened, because in all those years he had never come as close to killing me as he did that night. I suggested a truce. Partly because I needed to heal, and partly because I needed time to plan. What I had done so far wasn’t working. I needed to figure out what would.”

 _“You_ suggested the truce?”

Taekwoon smiles, but it’s not happy. “Yes. If he lived a mortal life and kept to himself and did not start trouble, I would not kill him. He accepted, and for a while we lived like that. I always watched him from the shadows, and he could always feel my presence, but we never came to blows. And then he started consorting with the incubus and broke his side of the bargain. I wanted to attack him but—” He grimaces. “Heaven was… not pleased with me. Angels have free will, so I could do what I wanted, but it was made explicitly clear to me that I was straying from God’s path and that if I did not… if this nephilim was not apprehended soon, I would be reassigned. So I could not attack him directly. I could not throw the first stone, so to speak. So I looked into other methods.”

It dawns on Hongbin what he means by _other methods_ , and he leans back in horror. He knew this already—Hakyeon’s explained it, in bits and pieces, over the years. But to actually hear it coming from Taekwoon’s lips is something else entirely.

“I used false immortals. I killed them as warnings. A succubus, and then an incubus. I had—my plan was to kill Jaehwan’s incubus,” Taekwoon stutters, and faintly Hongbin realises that he still can’t say Hakyeon’s name. “I had not planned on killing the hum—Sanghyuk. It was a stroke of… luck, I suppose, that he was walking home alone at night. I knew he mattered to the incubus. I could sense that much. It was… easy.”

“Taekwoon…”

“I ran him through with my sword and I smiled as he bled out,” Taekwoon says, his voice devoid of all emotion. “He was nothing but prey to me. I was not particularly surprised when I realised he had been turned. That was not my concern. I used him to try and drive a wedge between the incubus and Jaehwan, and to hurt everyone, and to goad Jaehwan into being angry enough to break the stalemate.” He closes his eyes and grimaces. “It was an awful, horrible thing I did. Every day I open my eyes and I regret it. I cannot pay for it enough.”

For a long time, Hongbin doesn’t say anything. He can’t. He doesn’t have the words. When he does, it’s with a quiet, simmering anger that’s not entirely his own in origin. This pain belongs to Sanghyuk, and he is merely a conduit for it. “Sanghyuk’s only crime was loving someone,” he snaps, and Taekwoon blanches. “He loved Hakyeon and he died for it. He had nightmares of you for years. He’d see you, sometimes, at night, if we were walking in empty streets. Wings flapping would set him off. He couldn’t watch violent TV shows. Humans have therapy for PTSD but all we have is each other, and he was constantly reliving his trauma because you were constantly around. And—and just when he thinks he’s safe, just when he has slipped into complacency, just when he’s been living a comfortable life for over half a decade, what happens?” His chest is heaving now, but he can’t stop, not even as his vision starts to swim red around the edges. “His boyfriend—the one person who’s supported him through all of this—turns up and tells him he has fallen in love with the angel who murdered him.”

“Is this your way of telling me you are going back to Sanghyuk?” Taekwoon asks, and Hongbin is so taken aback that his words fail him entirely. “Because I would not blame you if you were—I know it hurts you—”

“What! No,” Hongbin blurts, and bridges the gulf between them to grab Taekwoon’s hand. “God, no. I’m not leaving you. I’m just upset and sad that it ended up this way… that fate could be this cruel. I sat and watched for decades as Hakyeon flirted with temptation and Wonshik flirted with danger and now all that passivity has come back to bite me in the ass. I hate—I hate feeling out of control. I hate being torn in two. I hate realising that I’m not the person I thought I was.”

“You love me.” Taekwoon seems to be waiting for affirmation, so Hongbin nods. “And you love Sanghyuk.” He nods again. “Sanghyuk hates me. So what are you going to do?”

“Sanghyuk hates the angel you used to be,” Hongbin corrects, “and so do I, if I’m honest. I have no idea what I’m going to do, Taekwoon. Not one fucking clue.”

They don’t speak, after that. They have exhausted themselves of their words. Instead they get ready for bed in silence, and right before the dawn rises and claims him, Hongbin feels Taekwoon pull him close, and realises Taekwoon is crying silently.

//

They spend the next night in bed, melancholy and lazy, watching television and dozing off in each other’s arms. Hongbin is ruminating on Taekwoon’s words from last night, and Taekwoon is—well, Taekwoon is an enigma. He has withdrawn into himself where Hongbin cannot follow, and he is too introspective to try.

“Wonshik,” he murmurs into Taekwoon’s chest as they lie in the darkness, Taekwoon playing with his fingers. “Why Wonshik?”

It’s not just that he has been avoiding thinking of Wonshik because it hurts (differently to how his hurt over Sanghyuk feels; deeper, somehow, more raw) but also because Wonshik’s near-death experience was wrapped up in a series of events that all seemed to happen very fast, and tend to blur together in Hongbin’s mind. They had all spent a rather peaceful month at that beach house, but looking back on it now, it seems as if leading up to the final fight on the rooftop, everything occurred within the span of a few weeks at most.

Taekwoon sighs. “For the same reason as Sanghyuk… he was just a means to an end, as horrible as that is. Everything I tried hadn’t worked. Jaehwan would still not attack me. Wonshik was… a last resort.”

“And it worked.”

“It did.” Taekwoon tangles their fingers together and pulls them apart again. The slide of his palms soothes Hongbin’s worries, just a bit, even though talking about this is bringing back the awful pain he’d felt that day. “Little did I know I would be setting off a chain of events that lead to my own death.” He pauses to look down at Hongbin. “I saw… in your head. I saw how much it hurt for you… I did not realise you would feel his pain.”

“The curse of the bond,” he whispers, and has to remind himself to take a shuddering breath in. “It was awful, Taekwoon. The worst pain I have ever felt. Wonshik hyung knew he was dying and he was scared of you and he was scared of the sun—” he cuts himself off because he can feel his hysteria rising, and here in the bed with Taekwoon, it just doesn’t belong.

“I did not expect him to live. I was very surprised when I realised the nephilim had given him life… He had more compassion than I expected.”

Hongbin pulls his hand away from Taekwoon’s and rolls over so he’s on his back. “It nearly killed Hakyeon hyung, choosing between them. He was—he was convinced Jaehwan had died so Wonshik could live… We all watched him lose his mind.”

He’s not telling Taekwoon anything he doesn’t know, because he has of course seen everything in Hongbin’s head, but knowing and confirming are two different things. Speaking this aloud is taking him back to that horrible time and he hates it, he _hates_ it, and he can’t do anything about it except cover his eyes and bite back the urge to scream. The bond, when he dives into it out of instinct rather than any conscious urge, is clouded and barely readable and he gasps and pulls himself out of it violently.

“Hey,” Taekwoon murmurs, gripping his wrists. “Hongbin, look at me.” When Hongbin does, he has to bite his lip so he doesn’t make a noise at the fervent, wistful expression on Taekwoon’s face; Hongbin is paying for his mistakes, but Taekwoon is paying for them a thousand times over, too. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for what I did to Wonshik and I’m sorry for what I did to you and Sanghyuk and—”

“Hush,” Hongbin says, and places his fingers on Taekwoon’s lips. “I know.”

He knows the extent of Taekwoon’s guilt and sorrow, and it helps, but it doesn’t solve the torrid of feelings inside him, pushing against his skin, threatening to turn him inside out. The only thing that will solve that is the salve of time, and he is once again reminded of all they do not have.


	7. Chapter 7

Hongbin goes out to patrol his territory early the next evening—Taekwoon’s already awake when he gets up, and watches him go with worry in his eyes but doesn’t say a word—and realises that even though his territory has changed, the routine is still pleasant. He doesn’t have as much room as he did before, mainly because he’s been too preoccupied to defend a huge section of the district, but then he never was one to care about how many square miles he had. All he cared about was keeping it safe.

He runs into some local vampires in an alley as they’re feeding, a man and a woman. He doesn’t know their names but he’s seen their faces around; they’re younger than him and quickly realise it, backing away and bowing respectfully. He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t even have to. He just gives them a stern glare which serves as a warning to get out of his territory, and they comply.

“Hongbin hyungnim,” the man says as they’re turning to go, and the woman elbows him, hard. “I’ve—I’ve heard whispers—”

“Shut _up_ ,” the woman hisses, but the man doesn’t listen.

“I’ve heard that Jiho hyungnim is still interested in settling whatever score you two have,” he finishes, and then bows deeply before fleeing, his prey slung over his shoulder.

Hongbin stares at the empty alley for a long time after they go, shivers running up and down his spine. “Good,” he whispers to no one, and turns.

//

Jiho’s first mistake is the one Hongbin’s been making all along: complacency.

He is easy to find. Older vampires are often like like that. Routine is comfortable for them, and they rarely stray from it, which is fine if they’re like Wonshik—ancient and respected—but is a glaring weakness if they have a habit of making enemies. Jiho’s been making enemies in the city for a long time; Hongbin’s been reading old newsletters sometimes when he can’t sleep, trying to figure out Jiho’s rise in social standing. It’s still a mystery to him, but at least he’s now got an encyclopedic knowledge of Seoul’s vampiric history, stretching all the way back to when he was born as a human.

Hongbin follows him for a while. He’s alone, and Hongbin breathes a sigh of relief for that; Jiho has progeny, and seeing as Hongbin plans to rid them of a maker, he’d rather stay anonymous. He follows Jiho as he flits from club to club, making appearances, getting into spats with other vampires that don’t go further than hissing and threats, and Hongbin waits. He is patient. He is tolerant. He is ready, and near dawn, an opportunity presents itself.

He is heading home, or where Hongbin thinks Jiho lives—most vampires, like himself, own multiple houses or apartments scattered over the city—and on the way he walks past a pile of rubbish on the corner of the road. Jiho pays it no mind, but Hongbin spies the chunk of wood that’s broken off one of the pallets, long and sharp, and snags it. He hefts it in his hands and considers. It’s heavy enough, but it’s unwieldy; if he doesn’t time it right, he could be the one getting staked.

Oh well. The danger is what makes it fun, he supposes.

The sun is near to rising when he drops on Jiho from the roof of a nearby shop, aiming for his gut with the stake in hand. Jiho’s fast and throws Hongbin off, though, and once he realises who he’s facing he snarls, a gutteral sound rumbling up from his chest that sets every single one of Hongbin’s instincts to roaring.

“I should have fuckin’ known,” Jiho snarls.

Hongbin doesn’t justify him with a response. He moves in, wraithlike and emotionless, and fueled with all the anger he’s been holding in his heart since Taekwoon was attacked that night, attacks with a fury that surprises even him. Jiho’s older, but he’s distracted by the nearness of dawn. Once that would have frightened Hongbin too, but now he has walked underneath the sun again, she is a friend—and one that’s on his side.

“Fucking with an angel was the worst mistake you ever made,” Hongbin hisses, striking the back of Jiho’s knee with the stake, dodging as he goes down with a howl. “How would you prefer to die, Jiho? Stake? Beheading? Maybe I’ll drain you—”

Jiho growls, on his feet again already, but he must be low on blood because he’s limping as he reaches for Hongbin with fingers outstretched into claws, his leg not healing how it should. “You just won’t fucking die, will ya?” he spits, chest heaving. “You and your fuckin’ maker.”

“Leave Wonshik’s name out of your mouth.” This time he puts all his strength into the hit and the stake lands on Jiho’s ribs with an almighty _crack_ , bones breaking underneath the wood.

Bit by bit, slowly slowly, he drives Jiho back until he’s pressed up against the wall of the building nearest them, the stake pointing at his heart. They’re both panting heavily and both are wounded, but Hongbin simply has more energy to give—and he’s got Taekwoon’s face that night swimming behind his eyes, the animalistic part of him baying for blood. He doesn’t say anything as Jiho glares at him, just waits, fear curling in his stomach and his every instinct begging him to move but still he remains.

He sees the fear in Jiho’s eyes the moment before the sun rises, and then it’s there, enveloping them both in its warmth, and it’s far too late to leap for the shade. It burns where it hits the back of Hongbin’s neck and hands, burns worse than anything he’s ever felt before. Still he doesn’t move, because Jiho can’t move forward without staking himself, and he can’t escape the sun any other way. Hongbin isn’t afraid. He knows the sun. Jiho, though, doesn’t.

And the older the vampire is, the faster they burn.

Jiho’s skin blisters immediately and he howls, covering his eyes as if to try and escape from it; but as Hongbin knows all too well, there’s no escaping the sun, not out in the open like this. It’s pointless. There are mere moments before Jiho will burst into flame, and if Hongbin can just withstand the pain—

What he doesn’t expect, however, is for Jiho to leap forward, driving the stake into his heart and impaling himself. It gives him such a shock he nearly drops the stake, but somehow steels himself long enough to watch Jiho’s eyes fade from their usual vampiric red back to a human brown, and then he slumps and is gone and Taekwoon is avenged at last.

Hongbin yanks the stake out of Jiho’s chest and flings it away as far as he can manage. He watches, emotionless, as it goes sailing away and turns to survey Jiho’s body. He’s already starting to flake up, and in a few minutes will be a pile of nothing but ashes. He doesn’t have time to feel satisfaction, though. He has to move and he has to move now and so he staggers hastily for the nearest refuge, which turns out to be another apartment building. He stumbles blindly down the hallway, banging on doors, and when a human pokes their head out to see what all the fuss is about he whirls, eyes glowing red.

“Oh my god!” the man says, and steps out of his apartment, hands over his mouth. “Your skin—are you okay?”

“You will invite me in.” Hongbin takes one step closer, and another. The human falls under his control so easily. “You will follow me in and shut the door behind you.”

The man’s eyes are glowing a matching red, his gaze glazed and milky, and he stands aside and gestures into his apartment. “Come in,” he says, voice flat and monotone, and Hongbin smiles.

//

When he returns home the next day, Taekwoon is oddly distant. Maybe it’s because of Hongbin’s disappearance, or maybe it’s because of their prior discussions, but there’s a wall between them once more and Hongbin doesn’t know how to begin breaking it down. He’s too tired to feel sadness. He’s too apathetic to feel anything, actually, not even satisfaction when he logs on to read about Jiho’s death in his own territory. Given that all that was left is a pile of ashes and a faint smudge of black on the footpath, it’s being assumed that it was suicide, and it’s not until he goes to shut the laptop that he realises Taekwoon is reading over his shoulder.

“You did that,” Taekwoon accuses as Hongbin slams the lid of the laptop closed. “You _killed_ him.”

“He’s tried to kill me plenty of times over the years.” Hongbin slides off the sofa and makes his way to the kitchen, more to escape Taekwoon rather than any real desire for sustenance. “When he tried to kill you he just put the final nail in his own coffin.”

“But that’s _murder_.”

He whirls, and at last he feels. All that comes rushing in is anger and even though it’s anger at himself, anger at Sanghyuk and Wonshik and Hakyeon, he directs it at the person standing in front of him. “Oh, you’re objecting to murder, now? Really? Pot meet fucking kettle. I’m a vampire, Taekwoon. I murder. Get over it.”

“I did not ask you to murder for me,” Taekwoon says quietly, but there’s fire in his eyes and he juts his chin up defiantly in the wake of Hongbin’s anger.

All it does, however, is make Hongbin’s rage burn brighter. “No, and you never would have, but I did anyway because I fucking love you, goddamn it—”

Taekwoon crosses the floor in two strides and grabs Hongbin by the back of the neck to draw him into a searing, burning kiss, and Hongbin can taste the fear on his tongue as he kisses him back. They’re both gasping as they stumble blindly backwards, falling on the sofa bed as they pull each other’s clothes off; chests heaving, reaching for oxygen desperately because something has become disjointed between them and neither of them know how to fix it.

They’re naked, and then Hongbin’s got two fingers moving in and out of Taekwoon, and then Taekwoon’s threading their fingers together and bringing Hongbin’s wrist to his lips to whisper please against his cold, dead veins. Hongbin fucks into him and snarls into the skin of his neck, knowing that this isn’t enough, it’ll never be enough, and when Taekwoon turns to kiss him it’s right and wrong in all the ways Hongbin can’t even begin to count. He loves Taekwoon, he loves Taekwoon so much that it is tearing him apart, and when Taekwoon shoves at him and rolls them over he doesn’t protest.

“Bite me,” Taekwoon whispers, one hand splayed on Hongbin’s chest as he rides him, the other thrust towards Hongbin’s lips. “Please, Hongbin—bite me—”

The taste of Taekwoon’s blood does little to soothe the swirling chaos of his feelings. Neither does the way he moans. He tilts his head forward, his hair falling in his eyes, and time seems to stop as Hongbin drinks and drinks. He wishes it would. He wishes there was nothing but the two of them alone in the world; instead he sees Sanghyuk whenever he closes his eyes, and the guilt makes him want to scream. He doesn’t, though. He keeps his eyes open and watches Taekwoon as he comes undone, the way he jerks and moans when Hongbin reaches out to close a hand around his cock, stroking him to orgasm. He watches as Taekwoon comes, muscles tensing, tattoos rippling, the physical embodiment of beauty and everything that Hongbin needs but everything he knows he doesn’t deserve.

“Come for me.” Taekwoon’s voice is hoarse as he drags his bleeding wrist away from Hongbin’s mouth to lick at the wound. The blood colours his lips red and Hongbin hisses; black hair and pale skin and grey tattoos and a slash of red for a mouth and he comes, holding onto Taekwoon’s hips to ground himself.

Afterwards they lie in each other’s arms in silence. Taekwoon is stroking his hair, running his fingers through it, and even though Hongbin is so snarled up inside he knows he can’t sleep, he feels himself drifting off anyway.

“Please don’t leave me,” whispers Taekwoon.

His eyes snap open and he struggles up onto an elbow. Taekwoon’s not crying, but he’s looking so tortured that he doesn’t have to. Hongbin kisses his left cheek and then his right cheek for good measure, and then his lips, tasting the remnants of blood left there. “I will never,” he swears, and when Taekwoon’s lips wobble he says it again. “I will _never_.”

“You are all I have left,” Taekwoon says, and he smiles. “My Hongbin.”

//

Sanghyuk waits.

He’s gotten good at that, in the past few months. Waiting to wake up from the sad nightmare that has become his life. Waiting for the torment to end. Waiting for Hakyeon’s sympathetic glances and gentle touches—because he’s been where Sanghyuk is before, as they both remember all too well—to stop. He waits for images of Taekwoon and Hongbin together to leave his mind, and they never do. He waits to stop thinking of them and can’t.

He loves him. Hongbin _loves_ him.

And so Sanghyuk waits in bed one evening, tuning himself into the bond with Hakyeon so deeply it’s almost like he can see through Hakyeon’s eyes. He waits until he feels Hakyeon begin to feed on someone—someone who is most definitely not Jaehwan—and slips out of his apartment.

“Sanghyuk,” Jaehwan greets when he opens the door of his apartment, and he offers Sanghyuk a smile that’s far too concerned for Sanghyuk’s tastes. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he murmurs, slipping past Jaehwan to the kitchen, closing his fingers around a bottle of soju in the fridge. He twists open the cap and takes a long swig, his skin stinging as Jaehwan stares at him. “Everything,” he mutters, putting the soju down on the counter heavily. “He loves him.”

“Who loves who?”

Oh, to speak it out loud is another form of cruelty, but he closes his eyes and tightens his fingers on the cool, slippery glass, and makes himself say it. “Hongbin loves Taekwoon.”

“Oh.” When he opens his eyes, Jaehwan seems truly stunned by this, and that makes Sanghyuk feel a little better. If he could not see this coming, how could Sanghyuk? “Oh, I… wow.”

Sanghyuk doesn’t even know where to begin saying all the things he wants to say to Jaehwan. Once upon a time he’d just been Hakyeon’s half-angel fuckbuddy, back when he was still human and when immortal stuff was all a game to him. But now Jaehwan’s parentage, and his powers—he has his wings out right now and just like always they make Sanghyuk’s stomach feel tight to look at—are something of gravitas, and they’ve never quite struck up an easy a friendship as Hakyeon would want them to. That’s not to say he doesn’t consider Jaehwan a friend, because he does. But Sanghyuk just doesn’t understand him.

“How could you do it?” he asks, taking another sip of the soju, letting it burn his throat on the way down. “How could you… put tattoos on him? After so long fighting?”

 _How can I ever forgive Hongbin?_ is what he doesn’t ask, but Jaehwan hears it in his voice anyway, and his face softens.

“I am tired,” he replies, and leans against the kitchen counter, closing his eyes. “I am tired of the fighting… I am tired of watching you and Hakyeon fall apart.”

“So why not just kill him instead?”

“Because I had mercy,” Jaehwan says simply, and shrugs. “I still don’t know if I did the right thing for us. But I think I did the right thing for the universe. I… could not bring myself to kill him when he was helpless in Hongbin’s arms, when he had done nothing to me for the past ten years. And Hongbin had asked. Begged. It seemed like the right thing to do.”

Sanghyuk is quiet for a moment. The fridge hums behind him, a pleasant noise, so at least they aren’t standing in silence. “But you’ve… he hunted you for over a thousand years. You just… forgot about that?”

“Of course not.” Jaehwan smiles, and Sanghyuk just stares. “I still hate everything he did to me, to Hakyeon, to Wonshik, to you, to us. But I made a… I made a choice to put it aside, a conscious choice. It wasn’t easy.” He takes a step closer, and, knowing what Sanghyuk craves, puts a hand on his shoulder. “Forgiveness _is_ a choice, Sanghyuk.”

He downs the rest of the soju in lieu of anything else to say, and then places the bottle on the counter before sagging forward into Jaehwan’s arms. He’s nice to hug, he realises faintly. He doesn’t remember if they’ve ever hugged before. Wings come around to cradle him, and even though they send shivers down his spine at the nearness of them, the feathers are soft and he closes his eyes. “He _loves_ him,” he murmurs. “Hongbin _loves_ him.”

“I know.”

“I wish—I wish I didn’t love him anymore, because then… I don’t know. Then it would be easy to just never think of him again. But I do. And I don’t—I don’t know if I can live without him for much longer.”

He’d always prided himself on his independence, especially after what happened with his family. But being without Hongbin has unravelled him, in new and painful ways, and he hates it. He misses Hongbin fiercely and maybe the worst part of it is he doesn’t know if he cannot begrudge Hongbin for falling in love. He loves so freely and so openly, with no questions asked and no conditions, that logically it makes sense that he could fall for another so easily. But—Taekwoon. Sanghyuk knows he isn’t who he used to be. But that doesn’t mean he can separate the Taekwoon of today from the Taekwoon of a decade ago. He doesn’t know if he has it in him.

“Do you want my advice?” Jaehwan whispers into the skin of his neck, and Sanghyuk nods. “When you’re ready, when you’ve thought it through, talk to him. Let him explain it. Hear his side of the story. If you can, forgive him. You don’t have to forget… but forgiving him will help.”

“I don’t know if I can,” Sanghyuk mutters. “I don’t know if I will ever.”

“Then you will have to learn to live without him.”

Sanghyuk screws up his face so he doesn’t start crying, and they stand there in the kitchen for what seems like an age, just hugging, letting himself be grounded by Jaehwan. When he finally turns to go, his head is pounding something fierce, but unbelievably something in his heart feels lighter, somehow.

_Forgiveness is a choice._

Maybe he can start believing that.

Maybe he can try.

//

They go back to normal, because normal is all they know.

They go on movie dates, and go to arcades, and live life to the fullest because they know they have to. The fact that they’re on what is essentially a countdown never leaves their minds, or at least it never leaves Hongbin’s. They spend every waking moment twined around each other and Hongbin becomes so accustomed to the sound of Taekwoon’s heartbeat in his ears that not hearing it is a new and special kind of torture.

“Taekwoon,” Hongbin calls one evening, leaning back on the sofa bed (that hasn’t been turned back into a sofa since the day it was delivered and is, for all intents and purposes, a bed permanently), “can you check the phrasing of this?”

Taekwoon wanders back into the room obediently, a chocolate croissant in hand. He leans over the back of the sofa to peer at the laptop screen, and as he reads Hongbin swipes at the crumbs on his chin. “It sounds a bit old fashioned,” he mumbles, chewing as he speaks. “But otherwise it’s fine.”

“Thanks.” Hongbin presses a kiss to Taekwoon’s cheek and gets a waft of chocolatey breath in his face as thanks. The nearness of him is distracting, and his fangs run out without him even realising. Damn it. He’ll need to feed soon.

“You are welcome. Also, Hongbin, I was wondering…” There’s the bang of the freezer door opening and closing and then the slam of the microwave door doing the same thing. “Could I… revoke your invitation?”

“Why? Thinking about kicking me out?”

“Yes,” Taekwoon jokes, over the drone of the microwave. “I am curious is all. You said—you said Sanghyuk had locked you out of your apartment. I did not think that would be possible.”

“Neither did I, but I’m hardly an expert.” The microwave dings, and a moment later Taekwoon reappears with a bag of blood in his hands, which he gives to Hongbin with only the slightest grimace of distaste. “Thanks.”

“I am not an expert either.” Taekwoon settles himself on the end of the bed and reaches for Hongbin’s laptop. “Other angels would probably know, but my speciality was nephilim, not vampires.”

Hongbin’s never had cause to test the limits of his invitation-based ability to get into or out of places. He has—had—an open invitation to Wonshik and Hakyeon and Jaehwan’s houses, he doesn’t need invitations to public places, and all he has to do to get inside a mortal’s home is to glamour them. Which is why, he supposes, it was such a shock that Sanghyuk had rejected him in such a visceral, blatant way, one he can’t get around. It’s only been a month since it’s happened and it still plays on his mind, because what if Hakyeon has done the same thing? What if Wonshik has too? It’s the principle of the thing, of being locked out of places he used to be welcome, like they’ve taken the metaphysical and made it a very physical restriction.

“Dunno,” he says eventually, ripping the blood bag open with his fangs and upending it, drinking it all in one go. “It shouldn’t have been possible. He isn’t even the one who issued the invitation. I thought that’s what mattered, that the one who invited me in in the first place had to be the one to kick me out. Apparently not.”

“Who did invite you in?”

Hongbin scrunches up the empty plastic bag in his hands and thinks. “The real estate agent, I suppose. It wasn’t Sanghyuk. I remember that much. But I thought that… I thought the ‘magic’,” he says, with air quotes, “would have recognised the fact that I lived there for years, that my name was on the deed. But it didn’t.”

“And who invited you into this place?”

“Another real estate agent.” He had bought this place decades ago, probably twenty years or so, because he had saved enough money to do so and because he knew the value of having boltholes all over the city. It’s tiny, and it’s in a shit building in a shitty district on the other side of the river from his old home, but it’s his and now it’s theirs and that means something, now. “I don’t know if it will work, but we can try, if you really want.”

He’d thought maybe Taekwoon would make a ritual out of it or something, but instead he just takes the empty bag from Hongbin’s hands, looks him in the eye, and quite calmly says, “Hongbin, I revoke your invitation.”

His body moves of its own accord and he shrieks, because he couldn’t stop it even if he wanted to. His legs carry him over to the door, his arms reaching out, his hand closing around the door handle, and he’s opening it and stepping outside. Then—and only then—does he regain control of himself. “What the fuck!”

Taekwoon approaches slowly, but stops on the other side of the threshold, out of Hongbin’s reach. “Did you do that?”

“No—I couldn’t control it—it was like I was possessed,” he chokes out, one hand on his chest to try and pull himself together.

That was _weird_. He was a puppet tied to invisible strings with no control over his body, only the overwhelming knowledge that he had to _get out_. He reaches out towards Taekwoon, but his hand hits an invisible barrier. It doesn’t even feel solid. It doesn’t feel like _anything_. He just cannot move any further, even as much as he strains, and he hates this, he hates it. “God, Taekwoon, let me in, please.”

“You can come in,” Taekwoon murmurs, and the barrier dissipates. Hongbin steps inside and into his arms, and realises he’s shaking. “I’m sorry. I did not realise it would be like that. I hadn’t… I thought it would not work.”

“I _own_ this house,” Hongbin gasps, and dazedly shuts the door behind him. “I’ve owned this house for years—I signed my fucking _name_ on the deed. And that didn’t even matter. I hate this.”

“Hey, at least now we know.” Taekwoon cups Hongbin’s cheek and smiles, trying so hard to cheer him up. “I have a foolproof method of kicking you out whenever we fight.”

He smiles, more for Taekwoon’s benefit at his shit joke than due to any real joy he feels, and makes his way back to bed. He wants to curl up underneath the blankets and sleep to try and escape from the way his mind is racing, but it’s too early for that, and when he reaches for his phone he sees he has a message—and he stops breathing entirely.

The only people who have this number are Hakyeon, Jaehwan, Sanghyuk, and Wonshik.

“Hongbin?” Taekwoon says after a long moment, touching Hongbin’s elbow gently. “Are you alright? You’ve gone pale—well, paler than usual.”

He reads the words on the screen over and over again, mainly because he can’t quite believe he is receiving them, and also because he does not know what they mean. With shaking hands he turns and shoves the phone in Taekwoon’s face, watches his lips form the words as he reads them to himself.

_Binnie. I want to talk. Will you meet me? -Sanghyuk x_

Taekwoon’s eyes flick up to meet his and he smiles, gentle and soft and knowing, even though he doesn’t know anything at all. Neither of them. “This is a good sign,” he murmurs, and pushes the phone gently back towards Hongbin. “It’s a good sign, Hongbin. You will get him back.”

Hongbin is in too much shock to process the words he’s saying, but he can, and does, process the tiniest hint of sadness and fear in Taekwoon’s voice. He doesn’t say it. He doesn’t have to. But just when they thought they had everything, just when they were settled—Sanghyuk. The other half Hongbin cannot live without, his moon. Everything he has been missing and grieving for months and months.

Once more change happens upon them both, and they are helpless to stop it.

//

Taekwoon doesn’t go with him to the cafe where they’ve arranged to meet, but he does help pick out Hongbin’s outfit.

“This,” he says, thrusting a shirt at Hongbin, “with these.”

They’ve mostly been sharing clothes—although Taekwoon has much more leg than Hongbin and so his jeans tend to be a little long—so Hongbin recognises the shirt and slacks he’s holding. Before he can protest, Taekwoon adds a leather belt on top of the pile and stands up, kicking shut the chest of drawers. “There,” he finishes, and he looks so pleased with himself that for a moment Hongbin can’t really process words.

“Since when did you become such a fashionista?” he grumbles, looking at the clothes in his arms. “This is a ridiculous outfit.”

“I am not a fashionista, whatever that means. I just know what looks good on you. You wore this outfit that night we went to the park to take photos.”

That’s a night Hongbin’s sure he will remember for a long time. They had packed a picnic dinner—food for Taekwoon and, well, Taekwoon for Hongbin—and had made a proper evening out of it. He’d dressed up, for Taekwoon’s instagram photos, and apparently he had looked nice enough that Taekwoon had got frustrated enough to push him down in the middle of a field of flowers and grind up against him, fingers slipping underneath Hongbin’s shirt, lips tracing a path down his neck. They’d fucked each other for hours underneath the moonlight, hedonistic and careless, and Hongbin could taste the moon on Taekwoon’s skin when he kissed him there; not as rich as the sun but satisfying in a different way. Before they’d left Hongbin couldn’t resist taking a photo of Taekwoon splayed out in the flowers, fucked-out with swollen lips and a bloody neck, his tattoos practically glowing in the darkness.

“So I did,” he murmurs, shaking his head to clear himself of the memories before he gets lost in them. “But what does that have to do with anything?”

Taekwoon’s smile is again a little sad, but more mischievous than anything else. “If I couldn’t keep my hands off you,” he murmurs, and reaches out to touch Hongbin’s lips, “what makes you think he will be able to?”

It’s not the point of the meeting, but the sentiment is appreciated regardless, so he gets dressed as instructed and does a twirl at Taekwoon’s request. He’s wearing a black turtleneck sweater paired with black slacks and a deep navy coat, and while it’s absolutely not an outfit he would wear normally—he favours loose, nondescript clothing that is easy to move in—the look in Taekwoon’s eyes is worth it, almost.

“A coat isn’t going to make him fall in love with me again,” he mutters as he’s stuffing his feet into his shoes—his nice dress ones that, again, Taekwoon had insisted on.

“Perhaps not.” Taekwoon shrugs and draws him in for a hug. “But it can’t hurt.”

They linger for a while, and if Taekwoon is hurting, he doesn’t let it show on his face. He must be. He _has_ to be, selfless is he is, and even though they both know he’d never say a word about it, it stings.

“I love you,” he murmurs, and kisses Taekwoon softly, letting his lips say what his tongue cannot. “I’ll be back before dawn. Don’t wait up for me.”

“I won’t,” Taekwoon says cheerily, and they both know he’s lying.

//

Sanghyuk had suggested a coffee shop on the other side of the river, but thankfully not in their old neighbourhood; Hongbin’s not sure he’d be able to deal with the memories. He makes his way there with headphones stuffed in his ears, listening to a history podcast to try and distract himself from the mortals around him enjoying the late autumn weather. They’re laughing and holding hands and drinking in the street, full of vitality and life, and he slips between them like a wraith. His place is not with them.

The coffee shop Sanghyuk’s chosen is one that’s open 24 hours, as advertised by a cheery neon sign in the window, but it’s not a chain. When he steps inside an older mortal woman smiles at him, and then squints a little, and then smiles even wider. “Your friend is waiting downstairs.”

“My friend?” Hongbin blinks bewilderedly.

“He told me to look out for a tall, pale gentleman. That’s you, isn’t it? He was tall as well, was quite charming—”

Smiling, Hongbin nods, cutting her off and starting to make his way towards the stairs. “That’s him. Thanks.”

There’s a pool of shoes at the foot of the stairs, so Hongbin toes off his and makes his way further into the cafe in just his socks. It’s quite cosy down here, actually; there’s people scattered everywhere, sitting on the floor at low tables, chatting over the noise of pleasant indie music playing in the background. It’s exactly the sort of cafe Sanghyuk likes to frequent, and right as Hongbin thinks that, he sees Sanghyuk and stops dead in his tracks.

Sanghyuk’s got his legs curled underneath him and he’s leaning against the wall, two drinks on the table next to him. He’s done his hair properly and when Hongbin remembers how his legs work, to take a step closer, he can see that he’s wearing nice clothes and has makeup on—makeup that’s imperfect, just slightly, which means he put it on himself instead of shifting it on. He makes a noise at the thought of that, and Sanghyuk’s head snaps up, and their eyes meet. His colours are a swirling mass of confusion and, interestingly, happiness, and Hongbin sags with the relief of being able to read someone again; he has become too used to Taekwoon’s non-colours.

Hongbin is the first to break the silence. “Hey,” he says softly, crossing the rest of the way to the table and folding himself onto the floor opposite Sanghyuk.

Sanghyuk looks him up and down very obviously and raises an eyebrow. It’s an expression Hongbin has seen Hakyeon wear countless times, and it hurts to see it on Sanghyuk’s face, even if he wears it well. “You’re dressed to impress,” he says, and pushes the drink toward Hongbin. “Meeting someone special?”

There’s no response he can give that doesn’t seem glib or that might come off the wrong way, so he just shrugs and takes a sip of the drink. It’s lemonade, and explodes in a sugary carbonated blast across his tongue, a pleasant distraction to the way he can hear Sanghyuk’s heart hammering in his chest. “Just you,” he replies, and winks. “You’re not too shabby, either.”

He’s not wearing clothes Hongbin has seen before, but that doesn’t mean anything when it’s been months since they last lived together and when Sanghyuk can shapeshift. He looks nice regardless, in a crisply-ironed button-up and what looks to be fitted slacks, from what Hongbin saw before he sat.

Sanghyuk snorts into his drink. “Hakyeon hyung picked my outfit,” he says, almost under his breath, but Hongbin catches it and smiles.

“Taekwoon picked mine.”

The words slip out before he can really stop them, but to Sanghyuk’s credit, he doesn’t flinch at the mention of Taekwoon’s name. He doesn’t even bat an eyelid, in fact. Instead he laughs, and it’s not put-on and it’s not mean spirited and some of the worry in Hongbin’s heart dissipates. “I suspected he might have had a hand in it. You’re not usually the type to get so dressed up.”

“For you, I’d do anything,” he says, and he deliberately keeps his tone light even as their eyes meet and Sanghyuk understands that he means it. “I am curious. Why did you invite me here?”

 _And why are you being so civil?_ It’s such a contrast to how it was the last time they met, where they’d wept in each other’s arms, mourning the death of something they couldn’t comprehend. Now it’s normal, they’re being normal, and he never thought he’d be able to have normal again, not with Sanghyuk. The tone of the message had been promising, of course, but he would be lying to himself if he didn’t expect Sanghyuk to be waiting to berate him some more.

Sanghyuk places his glass on the table, but his fingers are shaking slightly. “To talk,” he says simply, and shrugs. “I want to… I want to talk to you. I want to…” He looks away and exhales slowly, and Hongbin watches as his colours swirl and change. “I want to… try.”

“Try what?”

“I don’t know. I only know that I miss you, and that I still love you, and that living without you has been driving me insane. I know that I—I forgive you.”

As Sanghyuk’s colours clear, his indecision draining away, all Hongbin can do is sit there. He is completely stunned. _I forgive you._ Those are not words he ever expected Sanghyuk to say. He is too much like his maker, too stalwart and stubborn—or so he’d thought. He should have known better than to ever assume something of Sanghyuk, because the one thing that can be depended on is that he defies expectations.

“You forgive me?” is all he can whisper, still not able to form proper sentences.

“I do,” Sanghyuk says, and he meets Hongbin’s eyes, his gaze deadly serious. “I haven’t forgotten what you did, but I forgive you for it.”

He wants to leap across the table and kiss Sanghyuk right then and there, but given that they’re in public, he does the second best thing and reaches his trembling hand across the table to take Sanghyuk’s. They move haltingly, slowly, unused to this contact, but the moment Sanghyuk squeezes his fingers he takes a ragged inhale and realises that this is what it feels like to come home.

The moment he thinks that, he comes straight back down to Earth again, because Taekwoon is waiting for him at the apartment, in the home they have created for themselves, and the guilt returns to cut him once more. Is this how it will be? He cannot have one without the other, and he cannot have either of them with the remorse?

Sanghyuk’s reading his face and gives his fingers another squeeze. “I know you love him,” he says, and leans a little closer. “I won’t say that’s okay, and I’m not saying I can fully accept it… but I recognise that. And I don’t… want to come between you.”

“I am not saying this to be cruel,” Hongbin starts, hesitant as he considers his words. “And I’m not trying to start a fight. But what you have with Hakyeon—”

“Doesn’t compare,” Sanghyuk says firmly. “It doesn’t compare. I’m not in love with him.”

Hongbin waits a long time before he speaks, and when he does, he whispers—because he could just be antagonising Sanghyuk, which is not what he wants to do. But he’s watched Sanghyuk’s colours when he’s around Hakyeon, watched them for years, and he could be getting things wrong and could be mixing it up—but maybe he isn’t. “Are you sure you’re not in love with him? Even just a little?” When Sanghyuk doesn’t reply, he smiles encouragingly. “I was, for a while.”

And he sees it—he sees the recognition flash across Sanghyuk’s face, burn in his colours. “Oh,” he says, and his hand goes limp in Hongbin’s grasp. “Oh, I—”

He’s not even jealous, because it’s a recognition of what he’s known for years, and he finds that when he thinks about it it doesn’t even bother him. He’d be the biggest hypocrite in the world if it did, but he also knows that no matter how Hakyeon and Sanghyuk love each other, it will not, cannot, compare to this.

“Hakyeon hyung didn’t even want me to see you,” Sanghyuk murmurs, snapping back to himself. “He tried to talk me out of it. He’s very… he deals in absolutes.”

“Like a Sith,” Hongbin replies.

Sanghyuk snorts, and the tension is broken. He picks up his glass and chews on his straw, eyes bright and playful, and Hongbin almost collapses with relief. “Yeah, exactly like a Sith. Which makes you a Jedi.”

Hongbin can’t be bothered to retort to that, because he knows it will just start another pointless pop culture argument—he begged Sanghyuk for years to shift into a dragon, and he’d finally done it just to shut Hongbin up—and instead plays with the ice in his drink. He doesn’t know what to say, not really. He’s still left speechless in the wake of the knowledge that Sanghyuk forgives him, he forgives him, he’s given his forgiveness so simply and easily and Hongbin knows he doesn’t really deserve it.

“I—”, Hongbin says, at the same time that Sanghyuk says, “Hongbin—”

“You first,” Hongbin insists.

Sanghyuk looks down at the table, as if avoiding Hongbin’s eyes, and sighs. “I just—I just wanted to say that I love you and I forgive you, but I don’t… I’m not going to move in with you or anything. I still need… distance. I can’t be with you… like that… while you’re with him.”

“Ah,” Hongbin replies with a tongue of lead, “ah. I see.”

“I still want to see you,” Sanghyuk blurts, as if to reassure. “I still—I would go insane without talking to you. I nearly did. But I don’t—I don’t want to insert myself between you and him, because I can’t really understand it, and I’m not sure if I want to. But when—”

 _Don’t say it don’t say it don’t say it don’t say it please_ , Hongbin begs silently, but Sanghyuk isn’t listening or can’t understand the desperate way Hongbin is looking at him and continues blithely.

“When he’s gone—I know it might not be the same but… I would love for you to come home.” He looks up at last and catches the look on Hongbin’s face, and blanches. “Oh, God, Hongbin, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that—”

But he did mean it, and Hongbin leans out of the way of his touch, not out of malice but out of a pure, crushing sadness. “He is just not a fling that I will toy with for a while and then forget about,” he says, and he sounds every bit as old as he feels. “I won’t… pause our relationship and then resume it when he—when he’s gone. That’s not how this is going to work.”

“I know, I know.” Sanghyuk breathes out, long and slow, and puts his head in his hands for a moment. “I didn’t mean it like that. I just… I don’t know. I won’t make you choose between us, as much as I want to, but I know that’s not fair. I don’t understand what you two have but I think I can respect it. It fucking hurts to admit that.”

“Everything about this fucking hurts.”

“You’re right.” Sanghyuk looks up and reaches for Hongbin’s hand again, and Hongbin lets him take it. “But it’s worth it, for you. It’s always been worth it for you.”

That’s a lie, that’s a horrible lie, he’s not worth it at all—he is worth much less than the heartbreak he has put them all through—but he doesn’t have the strength to argue, not when Sanghyuk can read his face and understands.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, and scoots a little closer so the table is pressing painfully into his stomach. “I’m really sorry for everything I’ve done. I never… I never would have chosen him to fall in love with, if I had a choice. But now I have I—I wish I could say I regret it, but I don’t. And I know that fucking kills you. And I hate that, I hate hurting you. I’m sorry that I did. I’m sorry I can’t fix it and stop you hurting.”

Sanghyuk places one hand on his cheek, and he closes his hand and turns towards it. “We’ll work it out,” he whispers, his voice warm and a little bit sad, too. “It will all work out in the end, if we let it. If we fight for it.”

“I love you,” Hongbin replies, not caring that his voice cracks. He takes the hand on his cheek and kisses Sanghyuk’s palm gently, speaking the words into his skin there, a brand for all the world to see. “I love you.”

Sanghyuk’s cheeks flush with a beautiful pink, and he smiles. “I love you too,” he says, and for once Hongbin thinks that maybe—maybe it will all be okay in the end.

//

Sanghyuk walks him home. He doesn’t ask to come up, and Hongbin doesn’t invite him, and it doesn’t feel awkward. It feels like their relationship has redefined itself somehow, and while it’s a little strange and disjointed, it’s not wrong. He knows—they both know—that for the foreseeable future they’re going to be off, and that they’re both going to have to put in a lot of work just to keep things together without fracturing. But having Sanghyuk even a little bit is better than not having him at all, so Hongbin is not going to complain. This is already far more than he deserves.

“You can’t go into the sun anymore, right?” Hongbin shakes his head, and Sanghyuk smiles ruefully. “Oh, well. It was good while it lasted. Tell him… tell him thanks from me. For that. For giving me that.”

“I will,” Hongbin replies, and he knows without turning that Taekwoon is peering down at them from the window, but he doesn’t look. “One day you should talk to him. He has a lot of regret for what he does to you, and I think… I don’t know. It might help if you heard it from him.”

Sanghyuk frowns slightly. “I’m not ready for that,” he says, and then jiggles Hongbin’s hand upon seeing his face fall. “I will be one day. Just not now. He can wait, right?”

“Yeah. He’ll wait. He’s good at that.”

“I bet.” Sanghyuk smirks, but he’s not being cruel, just playful—and how far they’ve come that he can joke about this. “It’s dawn soon. You should get inside.”

He should, but he doesn’t want to move. They’d stayed at the coffee shop for hours, talking about not just how they feel, but random things as well. Hongbin’d stayed carefully away from the topics of Wonshik and Hakyeon, as had Sanghyuk, but the urge to ask was burning in him. It’s still burning in him, and the words fall out of him before he can even stop them, much to his horror. “Wonshik hyung—is he—is he okay?”

Sanghyuk’s face softens, and he tugs Hongbin a little closer. “Yeah. He’s been doing okay. He was really, really depressed for a while. He blamed that on the bond. Once you started cheering up he got better. He’s just been really… frantic. Grown his hair out. Got a job teaching at a university.”

“Grown his hair out?”

“He refuses to let Hakyeon hyung cut it. Hakyeon thinks it’s hideous, rolls his eyes every time he sees it. I think it’s the longest it’s been in hundreds of years.” Sanghyuk catches Hongbin’s expression, his unspoken question, and his eyes get very, very sad. “Hakyeon hyung… will take a while to forgive you. He’s… He still loves you, which makes him angry. He’s angry a lot these days. But eventually he’ll come round. He just needs more time.”

 _Give it time._ Jaehwan’s words echo in his ears, and he relaxes into them. He can do nothing else. Sanghyuk knows the truth, and now so do they. It is up to them what they choose to do with it.

“Okay,” he murmurs, “okay.”

The sky is getting light rather quickly, and they both know it’s time for them to part, but unlike last time it’s not sorrowful. Rather, Hongbin’s heart is full of hope for the first time in what feels like forever, and he pulls Sanghyuk into a hug and just stands there for a few moments, inhaling the familiar smell and feel of him. After months spent hugging Taekwoon he feels almost too big, too wide, but at the same time just as right as Taekwoon feels, which he never expected.

“I’ll talk to you soon,” Sanghyuk says, and then before Hongbin can say a word he pulls him in for a kiss.

It’s chaste, by their standards, but it’s a kiss that is a promise and a wish all at once and he savours every second of it. He can’t get enough. Sanghyuk’s skin underneath his hands is something he was convinced he would never have again, and now that he has been proven wrong he doesn’t quite know what to do when they break the kiss and breathe together, trembling.

He doesn’t watch Sanghyuk go. Instead he turns and heads home.

//

When he gets inside, Taekwoon is sitting in bed with his phone in his hands, perfectly nonchalant. When he looks up and smiles, he quite literally takes Hongbin’s breath away. He’s just sitting in bed, but with one of Hongbin’s oversized sleep t-shirts on (that’s falling off his shoulder) and his hair all messy, and an expression of guileless innocence on his face, he is more magnificent right now than he’s ever been. There’s softness and beauty in the domestic, and Hongbin sits on the bed and sighs happily as Taekwoon lies down and puts his head in Hongbin’s lap.

“How was it?”

Hongbin’s hand falls on Taekwoon’s hair to start stroking it absentmindedly. “Don’t pretend you weren’t watching us.”

“I don’t know what you're talking about— _ow!”_

Hongbin had wound a lock of hair around his finger and tugged gently, but they both know it didn’t hurt, and he leans down to kiss Taekwoon’s laughing face all over. “You do know what I’m talking about!”

“I saw you kiss,” Taekwoon says, and it could come off jealous but it doesn’t, it doesn’t at all, and Hongbin wants to kiss him again just because of that. “I take it it went well then?”

“Yeah… I think it did. He said he wants to be a part of my life again. Not intimately… but I think we both find it hard to live without each other.” The tears he’s been repressing all night are suddenly very present, and he blinks hard, trying to make them go away. “He said… he said he forgives me.”

Taekwoon sits up very slowly and turns so they’re face-to-face, and his hand hovers in the air like he doesn’t quite know what to do with it. “Oh, Hongbin,” he whispers, voice full of awe. “I—I’m so glad.”

Hongbin looks down right as his tears fall, hitting the blanket and staining it red—his curse, one he can never seem to escape—but Taekwoon’s arms come around him and pull him close and it all seems okay. “I never thought he’d forgive me—I thought I’d lost him forever—”

They’re both crying, he realises distantly; Taekwoon’s chest is heaving as Hongbin leans into it, and he feels Taekwoon press a kiss into his hair. “I’m glad you have a life after me,” he says, voice so quiet it’s little more than a breath, but Hongbin hears it and his fingers tighten in the fabric of Taekwoon’s shirt as he clings desperately. “I—I didn’t want you to be alone after I… I know you gave everything up for me and I won’t live more than a century—I love you and I was heartbroken for you.”

“I love you too,” Hongbin sobs, knowing he’s getting blood all over Taekwoon’s shirt and the skin of his neck but far too gone to care. The love swells between them almost painfully, and to relieve it he leans up and kisses Taekwoon. He’s never had faith, never could find it, but sometimes—sometimes he thinks Taekwoon is his, and that’s enough.

//

There’s a lot of times over the years that Hongbin’s normal has been redefined. There’s the first time he woke up as a vampire, with eyes that could cut through lies and senses that defied his every expectation. There’s the time he first laid eyes on Sanghyuk and thought _wow, I think I could love you one day_. There’s the time he tasted Taekwoon’s blood on the rooftop of Hakyeon’s apartment and was overwhelmed by sadness and relief that they finally had peace. There’s the moment he’d wrapped his arms around Taekwoon in the night to drink his blood. There’s the time they stood on a beach together and faced the sun and Hongbin thought _it’s you._

And now, in the context of Sanghyuk’s change of heart, he adjusts yet again.

Sanghyuk doesn’t move in with them, as he said. But he starts texting Hongbin again, occasionally at first and then more often, and they start going on dates. That’s new, actually, for them. The sex came first and then the romance, but now they’re like virginal teenagers, giggling into milkshakes and sharing loving glances as they walk along the river, rediscovering the things about each other that they love. Sanghyuk even starts talking to Taekwoon; it’s stilted and awkward at first, but after a while Sanghyuk refers to Taekwoon as a friend, and Hongbin can’t help but smile. They do have a serious discussion about what Taekwoon did—eventually, months later, when they both can face it—and it’s not easy, given that their eyes are both wet with tears when Hongbin comes home to find them sitting at opposite ends of the sofa, but it’s a start. That’s all he can ask for.

At Hongbin’s insistence, Taekwoon starts looking for a job, although he complains about it the whole time. That is until Hongbin brings him home the brochure for a cat cafe nearby that says _We’re Hiring!_ , and his face lights up in a way that Hongbin’s not quite seen before. Together they sit down and forge a resume (with Sanghyuk’s help remotely via messenger, and although Hongbin doesn’t appreciate his suggestions of adding _Head Angelic Asshole_ and _World’s #1 Nephilim Murderer,_ Taekwoon thankfully finds them hilarious) and when Hongbin wakes up the next night to find Taekwoon sitting at the end of the bed beaming, he realises that somehow his fake resume got Taekwoon the job. It means he comes home at night smelling of cat, but it’s actually sort of endearing, in a weird way.

It doesn’t properly hit Hongbin until months later, when they’re at coffee together, the three of them. It’s just a chain coffee shop, so Sanghyuk’s bitching and Taekwoon’s chugging back a strawberry latte, and all around them they’re surrounded by couples taking shelter from the late-night cold. This is his normal now, he realises, and has to blink a few times to keep himself grounded. What a strange, strange life he has had.

“What are you doing for New Years?” Taekwoon asks Sanghyuk, lips wrapped around his straw.

Hongbin tenses. It’s only a few days away, and he’s been deliberately avoiding asking. For the last few years they’ve been spending it with Wonshik while Hakyeon and Jaehwan gallivanted around the world, but Wonshik is still not talking to Hongbin so he really doesn’t want to think about it. Best case scenario he was going to get drunk and pass out on the sofa.

Sanghyuk shrugs, but Hongbin can tell he’s trying too hard to be nonchalant and instead it comes across as nervous, which he can read in his colours. They look nice next to each other, he realises faintly—Sanghyuk’s vibrant blue and Taekwoon’s faint pink, one so expressive and one impossible to read at all. “I didn’t have any plans,” he says, and Hongbin relaxes. “But I was wondering if maybe I could spend it with you guys?”

“We don’t have any plans either,” Taekwoon replies with a shrug, and Hongbin could kick him because even if they just hang around the apartment drinking and talking, that implies a level of easy, casual friendship that he doesn’t expect of Sanghyuk. “I don’t see why not. Hongbin?”

“Sure,” he says, because how can he say no to either of them?

But they both smile at him, and some of his worries melt away.

//

It’s a low-key affair, in the end. They just lounge around the apartment—Hongbin on the old sofa, Taekwoon on the bed, and Sanghyuk on the bean bag—and drink and watch terrible movies, all of which Taekwoon hasn’t seen before. There’s a sadness that he can’t seem to shake, even if he’s laughing at the jokes in the movies, and Sanghyuk doesn’t miss how he keeps checking his phone.

He corners Hongbin in the kitchen a few minutes later, folding his arms over his chest. He looks older than he should, his face tired, and Hongbin’s heart aches for him. “He’ll forgive you too,” he murmurs, and leans against the fridge. “I know he will.”

Through the bond, which Hongbin has been trying to forget exists, he can feel that Wonshik is wreathed with the same strange melancholy. “I don’t know…”

“He loves you,” Sanghyuk says simply, like love is all it takes. Maybe it is—Hongbin doesn’t know—but the fact of the matter is that this is the first New Years they have spent apart in over a hundred years, and it hurts. He’s used to hurt, by now. He’s just tired of it.

“But…”

Sanghyuk smiles encouragingly. “You’re immortal. You can be patient. I promise he will come round. Just… let him work it out. You know what he’s like.”

Hongbin snorts. “Logical to a fault.”

“Yeah, exactly. And that goes for Hakyeon hyung, too. He’ll be angry for a while but—he’ll get over it. He’s got Jaehwan hyung to wear him down.”

The irony isn’t lost on Hongbin that he’s doing exactly what Hakyeon did ten years earlier. Hakyeon had hid his love for Jaehwan from the others for fear of their reaction—mainly Wonshik’s. In the beginning Wonshik, and Hongbin, by extension, had been so terrified of Jaehwan they hadn’t wanted to see Hakyeon go down that path. But he had, and they’d all had to live with the consequences, and Taekwoon is just another one of those. When he thinks of it like this he doesn’t know _whose_ fault it was, in the beginning, and it makes his head hurt; he isn’t as fatalistic as Hakyeon, but even he sees the patterns of repetition, wonders if they are all just doomed to repeat themselves until the end of time.

“I suppose,” Hongbin mutters, running his hands through his hair. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to bring the mood down.”

But Sanghyuk just shakes his head and steps closer and takes Hongbin’s hand. It’s the most physical contact they’ve had since that night they kissed, after the cafe; they’ve been studiously avoiding touching each other since. But this is nice. It’s not a promise of something more, or even an expectation. It’s just Sanghyuk squeezing him reassuringly, and Hongbin is content with that. “You didn’t, don’t worry. Come on.”

Taekwoon doesn’t bat an eyelid when Sanghyuk pulls Hongbin back into the living room by the hand. He just looks up at them, takes a swig of soju, and blinks innocently. “You missed the best part,” he says, and Hongbin smiles and leans over to kiss him, laughing into his mouth when Sanghyuk shoves him playfully so he topples into Taekwoon, who nearly spills the soju.

“Happy New Year!” Sanghyuk crows, standing over them and laughing, and before long Hongbin and Taekwoon join in too.

 

 

_ My only love sprung from my only hate!   
_ _ Too early seen unknown, and known too late!   
_ _ Prodigious birth of love it is to me,   
_ __ That I must love a loathed enemy.

— Romeo and Juliet, Act 1, Scene 5


	8. epilogue

They are in the middle of packing when a knock at the door comes.

Moving out had been Taekwoon’s idea, actually, and as soon as he’d broached it Hongbin had agreed enthusiastically. They’ve outgrown this apartment—it’s really not big enough for two people in the first place—and even though they’re both loath to leave, they know they should. They’d spent ages online browsing places, and had ridiculous amounts of fun going to view them, oftentimes driving the real estate agents up the wall with their inane questions (“so is it light-proof?” Taekwoon would ask innocently, just to watch their faces screw up in confusion). Eventually they’d found a nice place not too far from here. It has two bedrooms and a proper living/dining room on top of that, and doesn’t seem like it will be too hard to light-proof, so they’d signed the contract pretty much immediately.

Which means that they have to pack. It’s easier said than done, because somehow in the year they’ve been living here they’ve accumulated an abundance of _stuff_ that neither of them really knows what to do with. They don’t have to move out for another few weeks, so they’re taking their time; when the knock comes they’re sitting on the floor wrapping bowls and cups in newspaper while they watch a youtube playlist.

“Who is it?” Taekwoon calls as he gets up, picking his way across the floor to open the door. “Are you here for—oh.”

His voice wobbles, and Hongbin’s on his feet and at the door before he can blink, the glass he was wrapping hitting the ground with an awful _crack_. He’s ready for it, for whatever demon from the past is at the door, but what he isn’t ready for is Wonshik.

His hair _is_ long—ridiculously so—and tied back in a ponytail, but otherwise he looks the same. He’s even wearing an expression Hongbin knows very well. It’s one of nerves that he’s trying to cover up with bravado, and when their eyes meet, Wonshik offers him a watery smile that wobbles at the corners. “Hello,” he says, and then clears his throat. “I heard you might need help packing?”

The moment stretches between them and for a long while it hovers in the air, no one knowing what to do. Hongbin’s brain is refusing to parse the sight of Wonshik in front of him, smiling at him; it just doesn’t compute. Like Sanghyuk, he’d sort of given up hope of seeing Wonshik for a long time, if at all. He hadn’t called and hadn’t texted and hadn’t seemed to want to. But now he’s here and he’s hopeful and Hongbin—

Hongbin steps forward and pulls him into a hug, and screws his eyes shut as Wonshik hugs him back, even though he doesn’t like touching, even though Hongbin thought he wouldn’t have this again, even though, even though. “I missed you,” he says, biting back a sob. It’s not like it matters, though, because as soon as he does Wonshik lets out a sob of his own and buries his face in the side of Hongbin’s neck. “I missed you so much—”

Just being in the physical presence of his maker again is doing wonders. They pull back and look at each other and just smile, fangs and all, and just when Hongbin thinks things can’t get any better Wonshik turns to look at Taekwoon and smiles at him, too. “Hello, Taekwoon,” he says, voice open and friendly, and Hongbin has to close his eyes because Jaehwan’s words are swirling around him. _Give it time. They will come round._

“Would you like to come in?” Taekwoon says, grinning from ear to ear as he looks between Hongbin and Wonshik, faces marred by bloody tears but otherwise lit up with joy.

“I would love to,” Wonshik replies, and he takes Hongbin’s hand and they step inside together.

 

 _My bounty is as boundless as the sea,_  
_My love as deep; the more I give to thee,_  
_The more I have, for both are infinite._  
—Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't think I've ever been so frightened to post a fic in my life, lol. I rly, rly hope that I was able to make what you just read believable and authentic, but even so I doubt myself. I just... I hope no one is upset at the direction I've taken the story.
> 
> believe it or not this isn't the direction i saw the story going, back when I was planning the end arc of incubus. it snuck up on me and sunk its teeth into me and took off and I was just a hapless passenger who had to get the story out. i fell in love with taekwoon & hongbin as they fell in love with each other, but i'm still worried about the reception. i just hope it comes across as sad and believable and beautiful and not a stupid plot twist right before we end! but please do let me know what you honestly think, yall are allowed to hate the direction i've taken LOL (also a huge HUGE thank you to K. I know I was extremely annoying writing this, hitting you up with questions all the time, and I really admire your patience. thank you for putting up with me. thank you for helping me create this ♡)
> 
> this was the second last chapter of incubus :( the next one is the last one for real. I mean i might make a wrap-up fic with various in-universe drabbles i've written over the years (just to put them in one place) but yeah the next one is the last one story-wise. that's... very scary to think about, actually. this universe has consumed my thoughts for the past two (!!!) years. i'm gonna feel empty without it.
> 
> but everything has to end sometime :')
> 
> comments are always appreciated ♡ if you read this, thank you. i couldn't have done this without you.♡


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